Preamble

The House—after the Adjournment on 8th June, 1962, for the Whitsun Recess—met at half-past Two o'clock.

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

NEW WRIT

For Leicester, North-East, in the room of Sir Arwyn Lynn Ungoed-Thomas, Q.C. (one of the Justices of the High Court of Justice).—[Mr. Bowden.]

PRIVATE BUSINESS

MANCHESTER SHIP CANAL BILL

Read the Third time and passed.

REGENT REFINING COMPANY BILL

As amended, considered: to be read the Third time.

LONDON BRIDGE IMPROVEMENTS BILL [Lords]

Read a Second time and committed.

Oral Answers to Questions — NATIONAL FINANCE

Local Authorities (Loans)

Mr. Fitch: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if, in view of the difficulties caused to local authorities, he will reconsider the rates of interest which should apply to all loans advanced by them, as set out in Circular 30/62 from the Ministry of Housing and Local Government.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): The rates of interest charged on loans from the Local Loans Fund are kept in line with those ruling on the market for local authority borrowing. If the market rates fall, the rates which the Public Works Loan Board charges on these loans will be reduced also.

Mr. Fitch: Would not the right hon. and learned Gentleman agree that in the past when Bank Rate has fallen rates of interest on long-term loans to public authorities have also fallen? Why has not this happened in this case? Why does the Public Works Loan Board still charge 6¾ per cent. when the Bank Rate has gone down? Will not he use his influence to bring this high rate of interest down, thus helping would-be house purchasers to buy houses?

Mr. Lloyd: The rates of interest of the Public Works Loan Board have decreased. The rate was 7½ per cent. for certain types of loan last August. But these rates are not associated directly with the short-term rate, which is the Bank Rate. I see no reason why the trend for long-term interest rates to fall should not continue. I remind the hon. Member that another factor affecting the costs of housing is that costs have gone up about 17½ per cent. during the last two years and that during that time earnings have risen by 17 per cent.

Mr. Callaghan: While we appreciate that the right hon. and learned Gentleman wants an alibi, will he answer my hon. Friend's question? Before the Chancellor's emergency Budget last July the long-term rates for the local authorities were 6¼ per cent. They are now at 6¾ per cent. As Bank Rate is now down to 4½ per cent., why have these rates not declined also to the level of a year ago, in view of the very heavy burden placed on the local authorities and the work they are trying to do?

Mr. Lloyd: These rates do not follow Bank Rate, which is the short-term rate. They follow the long-term rates, which are at present showing signs of falling. I see no reason why that trend should not continue.

Civil Service (Pensions)

Mrs. Emmet: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total number of Civil Service pensioners in receipt of a pension for full pensionable service of under £200 per annum; and what was the total numbers of pensioners with similar service in pension groups rising by £100 per annum.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As the reply contains a number of figures, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.
The following are the figures:
The table below shows the estimated number of Civil Service pensioners both industrial and non-industrial at 30th September, 1961, in receipt of pension in respect of 40 or more years' pensionable service.

Pension Group


Numbers of Pensioners


Under £200 p.a.
…
…
1,000


£200–£299
…
…
9,000


£300–£399
…
…
8,000


£400–£499
…
…
7,000


£500–£599
…
…
4,000


£600–£699
…
…
2,000


£700–£799
…
…
2,000


£800–£899
…
…
1,000


£900–£999
…
…
1,000


£1,000 or more p.a.
…
…
1,000

Mrs. Emmet: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what was the total number of non-industrial Civil Service pensions in payment on the latest date for which figures are available; and what was the percentage of these in which the total payment did not exceed £5 per week.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: On 30th September, 1961, the total number of pensions being paid to retired non-industrial civil servants was 137,000. Of these, 60 per cent. did not exceed £5 a week. But I would point out that about 90 per cent. of these pensions of below £5 a week are pensions paid to people who did not have a full career of reckonable service.

Mrs. Emmet: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend think that, in spite of the 90 per cent., the remainder need to have their conditions fully looked into once again? Living on under £5 a week is surely a very great hardship in these days.

Mr. Lloyd: I am aware of that fact. But my hon. Friend will also realise that 90 per cent. of these pensions are not in respect of full careers of reckonable service. This is a matter which is under review.

Mr. Callaghan: As many of these people are suffering considerable hardship, if the right hon. and learned Gentleman is unable to undertake a review of the pensions, would not he reconsider the Income Tax burden on these lower income groups and introduce an Amendment on the Report stage of the Finance Bill to relieve people on that level entirely from taxation?

Mr. Lloyd: That is an entirely different issue from the one raised in this question.

Mr. Callaghan: With respect, that is not so. The question concerns how we can help people on small pensions. If the right hon. and learned Gentleman finds it too costly to raise the pensions, why cannot he do something to exempt them from Income Tax?

Mr. Lloyd: The question asked for certain statistical information, which I have given.

Mr. Jennings: Is my right hon. and learned Friend aware of the very large number of public service pensioners who are living on pensions based on very low salaries of many years ago? These are the people who have been most hardly hit by the inflationary process. Will he now initiate positive action in order to alleviate the lot of these poor people?

Mr. Lloyd: I am considering that matter.

Dr. King: Is the Chancellor aware that over 150 hon. Members of all parties in the House have asked him to do something for the public service pensioners and particularly for the old public service pensioner whose pension has gone right out of step with the rising cost of living?

Mr. Lloyd: I am aware of that fact and I assure the hon. Gentleman that I am considering this matter now.

Organisation and Methods Staff

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Secretary to the Treasury how many Organisation and Methods staff are employed in the Treasury; how many are employed in other departments; and whether he is satisfied that that number is sufficient for all purposes of investigation and re-organisation required by Government Departments.

The Financial Secretary to the Treasury (Sir Edward Boyle): Fifty-nine people above the grade of clerical officer are employed on Organisation and Methods work in the Treasury, and 456 in other Departments. I think that these are sufficient.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Can my hon. Friend say whether 359 people are sufficient to look into the activities of nearly 500,000 civil servants, and would it not be advantageous to the Government in trying to achieve economy to bring in outside management consultants who have methods and organisation departments well-versed in these problems?

Sir E. Boyle: I am very ready to consider any suggestion which my hon. Friend has to make. It is fair to say that the work of the Treasury Division was reviewed in detail by the inter-Departmental committee appointed in November, 1960, and by the Plowden Committee in 1961. If my hon. Friend will turn to the published version of the Plowden Committee's Report, Cmnd. 1432, paragraph 53, he will see quite a favourable reference. Of course, I will bear in mind what he has said.

Mr. Snow: Without desiring in any way to be facetious, can the hon. Gentleman say who in his Department is responsible for the organisation and methods of the Organisation and Methods Department?

Sir E. Boyle: Perhaps the hon. Gentleman would like to put down a Question on that subject.

National Economic Development Council

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the terms of reference of the National Economic Development Council will enable that body to make recommendations on the reorganisation of industry on the basis of public ownership.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: It is open to the Council to consider any subject which it thinks relevant to the economic performance of the nation and, in particular, to its rate of sound growth.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman answer my question? Is it included in the terms of reference?

Mr. Lloyd: No, the terms of reference are more general; I did in fact give them to the House in the course of my speech in one of the economic debates.

Mr. Shinwell: Cannot the Council go outside the terms of reference and deal with this very important aspect of the reorganisation of industry?

Mr. Lloyd: I specifically said when I started the work of the Council that I would not seek to veto any topic which it wished to discuss.

Mr. Mathew: Will my right hon. and learned Friend state if the Council will be able to recommend denationalisation?

Mr. Lloyd: That also will be open to the Council.

Mr Fisher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether the National Economic Development Council will include in its studies the special problems of Northern Ireland.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The Council's field of work covers the whole of the United Kingdom. The Director-General of the Council is in touch with the Economic Adviser to the Northern Ireland Government.

Mr. Fisher: In view of the persistently high level of unemployment in Northern Ireland as compared with any other part of the United Kingdom, will my right hon, and learned Friend ask the N.E.D.C. to give special consideration to the possibility of establishing new industries in Northern Ireland?

Mr. Lloyd: The question of the level of employment in various parts of the United Kingdom will certainly be within the terms of reference of the Council.

Mr. Mellish: Will the Chancellor note that Northern Ireland is in a special category because, in addition to the shipbuilding crisis which it has had for so long, there is now an appalling problem in the aircraft industry? Will he appreciate that this small country is part of the United Kingdom and is facing problems which deserve special attention?

Mr. Lloyd: I agree with the hon. Member.

Captain Orr: My right hon. and learned Friend will be aware that another committee is looking into the problems of Northern Ireland, namely, the Hall Committee. Can he tell us when its report will be available?

Mr. Lloyd: Not in dealing with this Question, which is concerned with N.E.D.C.

Civil Servants (Pay)

Mr. Corfield: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if he will take steps sufficiently to reduce the number of civil servants so as to absorb, without increased charge to the Exchequer, the recent increase in Civil Service pay.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I am in sympathy with my hon. Friend's purpose. I am very ready to examine proposals for reducing the number of civil servants. I must however say that most suggestions pressed upon me by hon. Members on both sides of the House are likely to increase the number of civil servants required. My hon. and gallant Friend may be slightly consoled to know that apart from the Post Office there were 29,000 fewer civil servants on 1st April, 1962, than on 1st April, 1951.

Mr. Corfield: While partially encouraged by that reply, may I ask my right hon. and learned Friend whether he does not agree that, if the doctrine of comparability on which Civil Service pay is alleged to be based is sound, any redundant civil servant would have no difficulty whatever in finding an appointment elsewhere?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that the point is that which I made to my hon. Friend. The House is constantly passing Measures which impose more duties and civil servants are required to carry out those duties. That is why the number remains so high.

Mr. Ridsdale: Can the right hon. and learned Gentleman say why the number of non-industrial civil servants has gone up by 37,000 since 1959, and the reason for the increase in the Post Office?

Mr. Lloyd: One example is the graduated pensions scheme. That is a case where a very heavy additional burden is put on a Department as a result of an Act passed by the House. I will certainly see whether I can give my hon. Friend further information.

Fishing Vessels (Overseas Orders)

Lady Tweedsmuir: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he is satisfied that the balance of payments

is sufficiently strong to enable grants and loans to be paid for fishing vessels built in foreign yards; and if he will make a statement.

Mr. B. Harrison: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what amount of foreign exchange will be required to purchase from foreign yards fishing vessels attracting subsidy under the Sea Fish Industry Bill.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I hope that prices quoted by British shipyards will be so competitive that no orders will be placed overseas. In which case no question of a strain on the balance of payments arises.

Lady Tweedsmuir: Even if my right hon. and learned Friend hopes that no orders will be placed overseas, does he not think that, in view of his continued hope of conserving foreign exchange, it is most unwise to introduce this measure now, particularly as it has never been done before on the ground of balance of payment difficulties?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that I can answer that in two ways. First, I do not think that it would be right to deny the British fishing industry the chance to buy the boats which they need and which are the tools of their trade at the cheapest possible price. Secondly, to maintain this restriction under present circumstances would, in my view, be a breach both of the G.A.T.T. and the E.F.T.A. Treaties.

Mr. Harrison: Cannot the Chancellor get his right hon. Friend to have another look at this? It seems to me that he is laying himself open to a drain on our foreign currency, and does it not seem rather extraordinary that this should only have just been realised and that the subsidy should only have just been extended to foreign built vessels?

Mr. Lloyd: I hope that our own shipyards will be able to quote prices which will mean that they will get the business. On the other hand, it is difficult to deny to the fishing industry the right to buy their boats at the cheapest possible price. The reason for doing this now is that new legislation is required and there are our obligations under E.F.T.A. and also under the old G.A.T.T. obligations.

Mr Hector Hughes: Will the Chancellor give figures showing how much it


is open to him to pour into foreign shipyards workers and owners at the expense of British shipyard workers?

Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. And learned Gentleman will put down a Question saying precisely what figures he wants, I shall try to give them.

Lady Tweedsmuir: As it is possible for this country to apply for a waiver of the G.A.T.T., would my right hon. and learned Friend not think that that would be a wiser move?

Mr. Lloyd: I am afraid that I cannot agree with my hon. Friend.

Goya Portrait (Theft)

Mr. Dugdale: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer when those recommendations of the committee of inquiry into the theft of the Goya portrait from the National Gallery, which Her Majesty's Government have accepted, will be put into operation.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: As soon as possible.

Mr. Dugdale: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman aware that while people welcome the fact that he supports the majority of the recommendations of the Bridges Committee, these recommendations cannot be carried out unless he gives sufficient funds for them? Is he further aware that he himself must take the main responsibility for the theft[Laughter.]—for allowing the theft to take place—of the Goya from the Gallery and for the deplorable conditions described in the Bridges Report because of the fact that he has not supplied sufficient money either to pay the attendants and wardens enough or employ enough attendants and wardens in spite of repeated requests to do so from the Gallery Trustees?

Mr. Lloyd: Without going into the question of the allocation of responsibility, I can say that we shall carry out as soon as possible the recommendations of the Report.

National Debt

Mr. Boyden: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the National Debt increased by £194,155,558 between 31st March, 1959, and 31st March, 1960, and

by a further £174,484,792 between 1990 and 1961.

Sir E. Boyle: I am unable to recognise the hon. Member's figures. The National Debt increased by £356 million in 1959–60, and by a further £519 million in 1960–61, as stated in the Returns relating to the National Debt, which were presented to the House as White Papers (Cmnd. 1221 and 1574). The hon. Member will find details of the principal factors giving rise to these changes in these returns.

Mr. Boyden: If the hon. Member cannot recognise those figures, perhaps he can recognise some simple ones. Will he agree that the National Debt has risen £2,000 million since 1951 and has gone up each year substantially, except for two years, since that date? What is he doing about that, and why is he so tolerant about the situation?

Sir E. Boyle: One simple fact that I certainly recognise is that in the years in question a major element was the borrowing requirement of the nationalised industries, £574 million and £386 million, respectively. As the hon. Member and the House will be well aware, we have had an extremely low borrowing requirement in each of the last two Budgets.

Mr. Boyden: Surely the hon. Gentleman is not claiming that the £2,000 million over the last eleven years can be attributed to the nationalised industries?

Sir E. Boyle: All I am saying is that hon. Members opposite greatly underrate the effects of the borrowing of the nationalised industries, both on the increase in the National Debt in this period and also on the difficulties which we had in managing the monetary system.

Mr. Callaghan: Are not the Government responsible for this? Is it not their liability and their responsibility? Does not the Financial Secretary recall the Prime Minister warning the country in 1959 that a vote for the Labour Government would mean an expenditure of an extra £1,000 million in the lifetime of the next Parliament?


Does he realise that he has already exceeded that figure in 31 years? May I congratulate him on that record?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Gentleman need not be so rhetorical about this. Certainly we recognise responsibility. It is because of the figures which I have given to the House that my right hon. and learned Friend has introduced two successive Budgets, in 1961 and 1962, which have reduced the borrowing requirements to a very small figure indeed, as the House is well aware.

Mr. Boyden: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer why the management expenses of the National Debt during the three years ended 31st March, 1961, have been two to three times the cost of management in the year ended 31st March, 1958; and what was the cost of management and expenses for the last financial year.

Sir E. Boyle: The management expenses of the National Debt, as defined by statute, include cash payments on conversion of stocks and Premium Savings Bonds prize money. These two items account for the substantial increase to which the hon. Member refers. The cost of management in the year ending 31st March, 1962, was £33·6 million. This included the expenses of the Post Office in managing National Savings securities which hitherto had been borne on the Post Office Vote.

Mr. Boyden: Perhaps the Financial Secretary can recognise that this is 2½ times what it was the year before. Is he quite satisfied with the fact that the management expenses and the interest on the National Debt are now running at approximately £1,000 million?

Sir E. Boyle: The hon. Member ought to recognise that the size of this item is not affected by interest rates and, secondly, that it is hardly unreasonable since even in 1961–62 the charge was less than per cent. of the total debt outstanding. I do not think that that is a figure to be ashamed of.

European Economic Community

Mr. Jeger: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer what information has been obtained, in the course of current negotiations, concerning the income

which was derived from the six countries of the European Economic Community in Customs and Excise during the last complete year for which figures are available.

Sir E. Boyle: About £40 million, on the assumption that the hon. Member has in mind the Customs revenue arising from the protective duties on imports from Common Market countries.

Mr. Jeger: Has the hon. Gentleman taken into account the economies in national expenditure which will be required when that income is denied to us when we enter the Common Market?

Sir E. Boyle: The figures I have given to the House are those in answer to the hon. Gentleman's Question. I must say that the figures I have given represent less than 1½ per cent. of the total Customs and Excise revenue and must be viewed in relation to all the other consequences which could follow from our membership of the Community.

Council of Europe (Recommendation)

Mr. Mathew: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer if his attention has been drawn to Recommendation 317 (1962) of the Consultative Assembly of the Council of Europe on the protection of private foreign investments in developing countries; if he will give an assurance that Her Majesty's Government will give full support to the international efforts being made to draw up a multilateral investment convention to provide such protection to investors; and if he will examine the possibility of instituting an international guarantee fund against non-commercial risks.

Sir E. Boyle: I have seen the recommendation to which my hon. Friend refers and can assure him that Her Majesty's Government will continue to support the attempt in the O.E.C.D. to draft an international convention for the protection of foreign property. The question of an international guarantee fund against non-commercial risks is at present under consideration in the Development Assistance Committee of the O.E.C.D. and Her Majesty's Government is, of course, taking part in this consideration.

Mr. Mathew: I am grateful to my hon. Friend for that reply. Should either of these two international initiatives prove abortive, would he, together with the Chancellor of the Exchequer, support a purely Commonwealth initiative to give protection to private investors in Commonwealth developing countries against purely non-commercial risks?

Sir E. Boyle: I would rather not go further than I have this afternoon. We have every reason to hope that agreement will shortly he reached on the text of a draft convention. But, in the event of what my hon. Friend says, of course we will consider that and any other reasonable proposal.

Mr. Brockway: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that this consideration is also covering the unequal distribution of investment, resulting in the fact that where there are profitable minerals investments are heavy, while other countries which need them most are being starved of investments?

Sir E. Boyle: That supplementary question takes us rather wider than the Question on the Order Paper, but I should be glad to make any inquiries I could to help the hon. Gentleman with the information which he seeks.

Building Society Investments (Australian House Mortgages)

Mr. Fisher: asked the Chancellor of the Exchequer whether he will introduce legislation to authorise British building societies to invest a small proportion of their surplus funds in Australian house mortgages, if they so wish, in order to aid British immigrants to Australia.

Sir E. Boyle: No, Sir. It is still the Government's view that this would not be an appropriate way to meet the need which my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mr. Fisher: Is my hon. Friend aware that permission to advance money in this way would be acceptable to some of the leading British building societies, would be very much welcomed by the Australian Government, and would be of tremendous assistance to British immigrants in Australia, some of whom have to wait more than a year before they even get on a housing waiting list? Why is the Treasury so reluctant to be

helpful when this could be done at no cost to the British taxpayer and could be done so easily through building societies, as we urged at the time of the Building Societies Act, 1960?

Sir E. Boyle: I appreciate the feelings of my hon. Friend and other hon. Members on this subject, which can hardly he dealt with adequately by question and answer. The Government's views were fully stated by my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary during the debates on the Building Societies Act two years ago, and in the Government's view nothing has happened since to justify changing their policy.

Mr. P. Williams: Would my hon. Friend like another Adjournment debate on this matter? Why is it not possible to do something? This proposal would be some way of meeting the needs of immigrants and of providing finance for housing, and is something which the Government should not shelve with Civil Service answers.

Sir E. Boyle: There is a difficulty about having an Adjournment debate because of debating something involving legislation, but I do not want to ride out on that unfairly. If my hon. Friend wishes to talk about this, either my hon. Friend the Economic Secretary or I would be glad to discuss it with him and his hon. Friends.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: If building societies have surplus funds, should they not be encouraged to use them to help those in desperate need of housing in this country to acquire their own houses?

Sir E. Boyle: I do not want to debate the matter now, but the surplus funds of building societies are intended to be their liquid assets. That was the point of my hon. Friend's speech. But I do not think that we can pursue the matter much further today.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRADE AND COMMERCE

County Durham (Crook Area)

Mr. Ainsley: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps he is taking to attract new industry to the Crook area, County Durham, to provide jobs for those who have lost their employment owing to pit closures; and if he will make a statement.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Niall Macpherson): The Board of Trade will continue to make every effort to encourage industrial development in the Crook area. The facilities of the Local Employment Act are available for any firms willing to set up or expand in the locality.

Mr. Ainsley: I am profoundly disappointed with that reply. Is the Minister aware of the ineffectiveness of the Local Employment Act in comparison with the degree of justice contained in the Distribution of Industry Act, which did seek to apportion industries to the needs of the population? Is the Minister aware that conditions in this area are worse than they were in the 1930s? Then there was a possibility that the basic industries would pick up, but those industries have now gone, and 2,500 of the population in this area are looking to the Government for work.

Mr. Macpherson: I appreciate the difficulties and anxieties of the area. We have been doing our best to bring the firms there. In the last few months between 15 and 20 firms have been recommended to go to the area, and half a dozen have visited it. In the end, it is for the firms themselves to choose where they should go.

Rotary Lawn Mowers (Engines)

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the President of the Board of Trade what steps are being taken to encourage the development of British engines for rotary type lawn mowers.

Mr. N. Macpherson: None by the Government, Sir.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Is my hon. Friend aware that when I went to the Chelsea Flower Show I was amazed to find that half of the British rotary lawn movers have American engines? What is the Board of Trade doing to help develop a British engine for these lawn mowers?

Mr. Macpherson: This is primarily a matter for the industry itself to consider, but the Board of Trade will be quite willing to look into the question and to see the extent of the dependence on imported materials, if my hon. Friend wishes.

Llanelly

Mr. J. Griffiths: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will re-schedule the area of Llanelly and district under the provisions of the Local Employment Act, 1960, in view of the increase in unemployment in the area and the further increase consequent upon the closing of the Bynea steel works and the Royal Ordnance factory at Pembrey.

Mr. N. Macpherson: Yes, Sir. In the opinion of my right hon. Friend, Llanelly is again threatened with high unemployment which is likely to persist. He has therefore decided, after consultation with the Minister for Welsh Affairs, to restore it to the list of development districts.

Mr. Griffiths: Since some time must elapse between the re-scheduling of an area and the establishment there of new industries, will the hon. Member in the meantime take steps, with his colleagues the Secretary of State for War and the Minister of Power, to prevent or postpone the closure of the Royal Ordnance Factory, where, between now and the end of the year, 800 men will be made redundant, and the Bynea Steel Works, where 750 men will be made redundant? Will he bear in mind that in both cases half of those who will be rendered redundant are over 50 years of age, and that this is becoming one of the most urgent problems in this and similar areas where redundancy exists?

Mr. Macpherson: I am aware of the problem of the factory at Pembrey, which has been discussed with my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for War, but I am prepared to ask him to look at it again.

Mr. Gower: Is my hon. Friend aware that the news of the decision that he has announced will be received with satisfaction in areas in South Wales which are not affected like Llanelly? They recognise that this area of Wales has a short-term problem, which we hope will be settled very shortly.

Sunderland

Mr. Willey: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether he will


include Sunderland in the list of development districts eligible for assistance under the Local Employment Act.

Mr. N. Macpherson: No, Sir. The employment prospects in Sunderland are such that my right hon. Friend would not be justified in accepting further applications for financial assistance.

Mr. Wiley: Is the Minister aware that for five years we have had more than 5 per cent. unemployed, and that we still have that percentage? Is he further aware that no one in Sunderland can understand wily we have been divorced entirely from Government aid?

Mr. Macpherson: A large number of firms are constructing there and taking on workers. There are more jobs in prospect there than there are unemployed.

Mr. Willey: We shall have to wait until 1965 before we get this new employment, most of which will have been provided by the local authority. We are still awaiting aid from the Government. The prospects for our major industry of shipbuilding are such that we must expect more unemployment in the next few years.

Mr. Macpherson: What the hon. Member says is quite untrue. These firms have received considerable aid from the Government.

Mr. P. Williams: Is my hon. Friend aware that most of the people of Sunderland understand that the Government have done a lot for the town?

Resale Price Maintenance

Mr. Darling: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will now make a statement on resale price maintenance.

Mr. N. Macpherson: No, Sir. My right hon. Friend is still studying the subject.

Mr. Darling: Can the Minister at least tell us when the Government intend to say something about their views on Section 25 of the Restrictive Trade Practices Act? Are we to take it, from the lengthy examination which is going on and from the Prime Minister's statement on Saturday, that the

Government are going to change their mind on that Section of the Act, passed only six years ago?

Mr. Macpherson: I am afraid that I cannot anticipate the statement that my right hon. Friend may make.

Dr. King: Is the Minister aware that British pharmacists are gravely concerned about this question of interfering with their present price system? Will he give serious consideration to their representations?

Mr. Macpherson: Yes, Sir. Many interests are involved in this question—manufacturers, retailers and consumers. We are giving careful consideration to them, among other factors.

Republic of South Africa (Supply of Aircraft)

Mr. Brockway: asked the President of the Board of Trade what licences have been issued for the provision of Handley-Page bombing aircraft to the Government of the Republic of South Africa.

Mr. N. Macpherson: It is not the practice to disclose details of export licences for the supply of defence equipment to other Governments.

Mr. Brockway: Has the hon. Member seen the statement in the Press that licences have been given for the provision of these bombers? Will not the Government consider adopting a policy of ensuring that no more armaments will be sent to the Republic of South Africa while it continues its present policy of apartheid?

Mr. Macpherson: I am not responsible for statements that appear in the Press. Questions of Her Majesty's Government's policy on arms exports to South Africa should be referred to my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.

Weights and Measures (Smokeless Fuels)

Mr. Shepherd: asked the President of the Board of Trade if he will introduce legislation to protect the consumer from short weight in smokeless fuels due to undersizing and excessive moisture,


as recommended by the Consumer Advisory Council of the British Standards Institution.

Mr. N. Macpherson: My right hon. Friend is bearing this matter in mind in connection with the weights and measures legislation which the Government intend to introduce as soon as Parliamentary time permits.

Mr. Shepherd: In view of the fact that these moisture contents are extremely high and cause a serious loss to the consumer, is there anything which my hon. Friend's Department can do, in conjunction with the Ministry of Power, to put an end to this abuse?

Mr. Macpherson: My information is that the moisture contents are not particularly high. The B.S.I. specification for open fire gas coke is between 9 per cent, and 12 per cent. at the point of production. When complaints have been made it has been generally found that that percentage has not been exceeded.

Mr. Darling: In view of the fact that we are never likely to get any weights and measures legislation from this Government, will the Minister bear in mind that what is needed here are standards, designations and specifications, which would hardly come within the provisions of weights and measures legislation, but which should come under his Department?

Mr. Macpherson: The hon. Member is quite right, in that part of this subject deals with quality rather than quantity, but I do not accept his premise.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Although B.S.I. specifications are laid down at the point of production, is it not true that this coke can sometimes lie about in merchants' yards and absorb a large quantity of moisture so that, at the point of sale, it has a moisture content very much higher than the 12 per cent. mentioned in the B.S.I. standard?

Mr. Macpherson: I am informed that once it has been quenched at the works coke absorbs substantial amounts of water only when it is stored in small quantities, and particularly when it is exposed to rain or snow.[Laughter.] I get this information from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Power. A provision was contained in the Weights and

Measures Bill making it an offence for anyone to damp solid fuel with intent to deceive or defraud. It would be an extremely expensive business to provide covered protection for all solid fuels stored outside.

Mrs. Slater: After that very profound statement, would not the hon. Member also bear in mind the fact that more and more local authorities are introducing smokeless zones and that, therefore, more and more people have to buy smokeless fuels? The cost of these fuels is already high. Is it not therefore essential that when people buy them they should at least know what weights they are buying? Should not the Government do something urgently at least to deal with this aspect of weights and measures legislation rather than to keep fobbing us off with a statement that we may have a Weights and Measures Bill this year, next year, some time, never?

Mr. Macpherson: We have to have regard to what is practical both as regards time and as regards the possible content of legislation.

Mr. Callaghan: Cannot the Minister go further? Has not he read the report which was circulated to all hon. Members last week on this subject showing the great variety in the value which the consumer gets for what he purchases? Has he no remedy when the moisture content might deprive him of between 10 per cent. and 20 per cent. of what he has paid for? Cannot the Government take action in advance of their ill-fated Weights and Measures Bill?

Mr. Macpherson: It is not true to say that the consumer has no protection in any part of the country. There are a number of local Acts which cover the matter on the lines of the provision which was included in the Weights and Measures Bill.

European Economic Community

Mr. Jay: asked the President of the Board of Trade what discussions he has had with the United States Government in regard to the tariff concessions proposed to be made by both the United States and the Common Market countries through a reciprocal agreement; and what representations he has made


to the United States Government and the Common Market countries in regard to an extension of the agreement to exports from the United Kingdom in the event of the United Kingdom not joining the Common Market.

Mr. N. Macpherson: No representations to the Governments concerned are necessary. Under the most-favourednation principle of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, any tariff concessions exchanged between the United States and the European Economic Community are extended to our exports.

Mr. Jay: Is it, then, the fact that if the United States were to make an agreement with the Common Market countries and the United Kingdom were not a member of the Community the tariff reductions made by the United States and the Common Market countries would be automatically extended to British exports?

Mr. Macpherson: Yes, Sir.

Sir C. Osborne: Then what is the point in joining the Common Market?

Industrial Mergers and Monopolies

Mr. Jay: asked the President of the Board of Trade whether Her Majesty's Government has yet decided its policy toward industrial mergers and monopolies.

Mr. N. Macpherson: No, Sir. As my right hon. Friend has already told the House, he doubts whether the comprehensive review of policy and legislation on monopolies and restrictive practices will be completed before the end of the year. He will also need time to study the results of the review.

Mr. Jay: As it is now six months since we debated the question of I.C.I. and Courtaulds and the whole question of mergers, is not this a subject on which the Board of Trade can tell us how soon it will take a decision?

Mr. Macpherson: No, Sir. I am not in a position to make a statement.

Mr. Wade: While recognising that every industrial merger is not necessarily contrary to the economic interests of the country, will the hon. Gentleman agree that a number of mergers are tending

to create a monopoly and neither the Monopolies Commission nor the Restrictive Trade Practices Court are constituted to deal with this problem? There is a gap in the law, as I have pointed out before. Is it the intention of the Government to do anything about it?

Mr. Macpherson: Those are precisely the questions which are being studied at present.

Oral Answers to Questions — UGANDA

Constitutional Conference

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the Uganda constitutional conference.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Reginald Maudling): The conference is still in session. I hope that it will shortly complete its work and that I shall soon be able to report to the House on what has taken place.

Mr. Thomson: Can the right hon. Gentleman say if he is to take any initiative on the question of the lost counties?

Mr. Maudling: I am doing my best to find a solution to this problem, but it is not an easy one.

Oral Answers to Questions — WEST INDIES

Common Services Conference

Mr. G. M. Thomson: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies when the West Indies common service conference will take place; and what arrangements will be made for representatives from the smaller islands.

Mr. Maudling: The Interim Commissioner for the West Indies has convened this conference for Tuesday, 10th July, in Port of Spain. He has invited the Governments of all the unit territories of the former Federation to be represented, together with the Governments of the Bahamas, British Honduras, British Guiana and the British Virgin Islands.

Mr. Thomson: While welcoming the expedition with which the conference has been called, may I ask if the Secretary


of State is doing all he can to encourage the smaller islands to present a common front and to give themselves the best possible start for a future federation?

Mr. Maudling: I am all in favour of that.

Oral Answers to Questions — GRENADA

Situation

Mr. Healey: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies if he will make a statement on the situation in Grenada.

Mr. Maudling: I am circulating in the OFFICIAL REPORT a statement issued by the Colonial Office on the 18th June.
I have taken this action with very great regret and only because the Chief Minister of Grenada left me with no alternative. Not only did he do all in his power to prevent the inquiry being held; but his comments on the Report also showed that he completely failed to appreciate the seriousness of its findings. The only conclusion I could draw, therefore, was that if he remained in office under the constitution then in force, the same financial malpractices and the same threats against the Civil Service would continue. This is a situation which I cannot accept as long as I am responsible for good government in Grenada and for the proper expenditure of United Kingdom moneys provided for the territory.
I very much hope, however, that it will be possible to hold fresh elections in Grenada in the fairly near future and that the normal course of constitutional development can shortly be resumed.

Mr. Healey: While deeply regretting the circumstances which have made the Colonial Secretary feel it necessary to take this action, may I ask what representations he has heard from other Governments of the projected Little Eight Federation concerning the action he has taken? Is he yet in a position to say when the elections may be held so that Grenada can revert to some form of constitutional government?

Mr. Maudling: I have had protests from a number of Governments in the area. On the whole, I think that public opinion as reflected in the Press respects and understands the action we have

taken. As to future elections, there will be no unreasonable delay.

Sir J. Vaughan-Morgan: Can my right hon. Friend confirm whether or not the courts in the West Indies have yet decided on the legality or not of the original inquiry, which I believe was under consideration? Secondly, can he say whether or not it is intended to take any form of legal proceedings against any of those who have been implicated in these matters?

Mr. Maudling: On the first point, we had a clear indication from the courts that we should proceed with the holding of this commission of inquiry. On the second point, I do not intend to take any other proceedings. I think that what we have done was both necessary and adequate.

Mr. C. Royle: In view of the drastic steps the Minister has taken, the seriousness of the position and the difficulty of dealing with it by Question and Answer, will he talk to the Leader of the House to see if time can be devoted to a short debate on this matter so that there may be some real clarification?

Mr. Maudling: Of course, I will talk to my right hon. Friend about that, but I thought the position was on the whole fairly clear.

Following is the statement:
The Grenada (Constitution) Order in Council, 1962, provides, with effect from today and until the next General Election is held in the territory, for the dissolution of the Legislative and Executive Councils and for the suspension of those provisions of the existing constitution relating to the Executive Council and to the functions of Ministers. During this period the Administrator will have the sole responsibility for the government of the territory. The Order in Council also provides that after the next General Election the constitution which came into effect on the 1st January, 1960 (the Grenada (Constitution) Order in Council, 1959) will be re-introduced subject to a number of changes. The main changes will be to give the Administrator wider reserved powers to act contrary to the advice of his Ministers than he possessed under the former constitution; and to empower the Administrator, acting in his discretion, to appoint an official Minister of Finance. It is hoped, subject to future developments, to arrange for a general election to be held within the reasonably near future.
The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Control of Public Expenditure in Grenada During 1961 and Subsequently was published as a White Paper on 22nd May. 1962


(Cmnd. 1735). This was an independent Commission. of which the Chairman was a West Indian Judge. Its main findings were as follows:—

(1) The Minister of Finance (Mr. E. M. Gairy who is also Chief Minister) had disregarded and contravened the laws and regulations governing the control of expediture;
(2) Expenditure had been incurred wastefully or unnecessarily through failure by Ministers to seek or refusal to accept the advice of the civil servants;
(3) The Executive had deliberately destroyed the morale of the civil service by an undesirable interference with administrative duties and by improper threats against the security of office;
(4) The Civil Service had been induced by this interference and these threats to commit or condone improprieties or irregularities in the expenditure of public funds.

After considering Mr. Gairy's comments on the Report, the Secretary of State has decided that firm measures must be taken to remedy the situation. As a first step the Ministers concerned will be relieved of their offices and the existing constitution will be temporarily suspended. From now and until a new general election can be held the Administrator will have the sole responsibility for the government of the territory.
It clearly will not be possible immediately after the next general election to restore the same constitution as existed before and under which these disturbing events occurred. There must for a trial period be adequate safeguards to prevent any future recurrence of the malpractices revealed by the Commission of Inquiry, in particular in regard to the expenditure of public funds. In the constitution which will take effect after the next general election, therefore, the Administrator will have a wider reserved executive power than he has possessed in the immediate past: he will be empowered to act contrary to the advice of his Ministers if he considers it necessary to do so in the interests of public order, public faith or good government. He will also be given a reserved power enabling him to ensure the enactment of legislation which the Legislative Council has failed to pass if he considers that its enactment is necessary in the interests of public order, public faith or good government. As already stated he will also be empowered to appoint an official Minister of Finance.
On receipt of the Report, the Secretary of State found it necessary, as he had already announced in Parliament, to suspend any further issues of grant-in-aid or Colonial Development and Welfare funds for the time being. Now that the necessary constitutional safeguards have been introduced to ensure that proper control is exercised over the expenditure of public money, the issue of United Kingdom funds to the territory on the normal basis will be resumed.
The Secretary of State regrets the necessity to take these measures, and he hopes that it will be possible to hold a new General Election in the island within a short time.

Oral Answers to Questions — SMOKING AND HEALTH

Mr. K. Robinson: asked the Prime Minister if he has completed his study of the problem of smoking and health, with particular reference to cigarette advertising; and what action he proposes to take.

The Prime Minister (Mr. Harold Macmillan): I would refer the hon. Member to the Answers which I gave to Questions on this subject on 5th June and 17th May.

Mr. Robinson: Can the Prime Minister say what the difficulty and delay is about? Is he aware that the Italian Government have succeeded in completely banning cigarette advertising and it is time that the Government did at least something on these lines?

The Prime Minister: As I told the House on 5th June, certain steps have been taken by the Secretary of State for Scotland, the Minister of Education and the Minister of Health, and further steps are being considered.

Oral Answers to Questions — NUCLEAR TESTS

Mr. Driberg: asked the Prime Minister what steps he took, in accordance with his undertaking, to obtain facilities for Sir Bernard Lovell and other British astronomers to discuss the holding of high-altitude tests with the United States scientists responsible for these tests; and what recent information on these tests he has received from the President of the United States of America.

The Prime Minister: Sir Bernard Lovell sent me a memorandum last month, in response to a request which I made to him, setting out his views on the high altitude nuclear tests. I arranged for his views to be communicated to the appropriate authorities in the United States.
As regards the second part of the Question, I am kept informed of the progress of the current series of tests but I cannot at this stage add to the information which has already been published.

Mr. Driberg: While thanking the Prime Minister for the action he has


taken in the matter, may I ask if he is aware that another eminent scientist, Sir Robert Watson-Watt, has more recently said that these particular tests are a breach of the ethical responsibility of scientists, since their consequences are beyond reasonable forecast and might prove irreversible? Would the Prime Minister be good enough to bring that opinion to the notice of the President?

The Prime Minister: If the hon. Member will send any information to me I am, of course, always ready to forward it. I carried out what I undertook to do and wrote to Sir Bernard Lovell and asked for his views which I communicated to the American authorities.

Mr. Gaitskell: While it is useful that Sir Bernard Lovell's views should be communicated in this way, is the Prime Minister aware of a proposal made, I think, by the hon. Member for Isle of Ely (Sir H. Legge-Bourke) that Sir Bernard Lovell should be brought together with the United States scientists concerned with this matter so that they could, as it were, argue the thing out together? Is that a possibility? Could the Prime Minister consider that?

The Prime Minister: There are a great number of scientists who consider these matters. I thought I had done what I undertook to do. The memorandum sent by Sir Bernard Lovell set out his views in great detail and they have been communicated to the American authorities. This is not part of the Christmas Island tests. It is a matter entirely for the administration of the United States Government.

Sir H. Legge-Bourke: In view of the question asked by the Leader of the Opposition, will the Prime Minister accept from me that Sir Bernard Lovell, in correspondence with me, indicated that he was very well satisfied with the Prime Minister's invitation?

Mr. A. Henderson: Will the Prime Minister consider proposing to President Kennedy and Mr. Khrushchev a further meeting of scientists from the three countries in view of the advance that has been made in the possibility of verifying nuclear tests of all kinds since they last met four years ago, in 1958?

The Prime Minister: Of course, that was dealing with another aspect of this question. As the right hon. and learned Member knows, this is a question of a particular type of high nuclear tests. The particular question of how we are to make a new effort to bring all this to an end is a separate matter on which I have answered Questions and on which. I am sure, we must at the appropriate moment make a further effort.

Mr. M. Foot: Presumably the right hon. Gentleman also submitted Sir Bernard Lovell's memorandum on this subject to the British scientists who previously advised him that high-altitude tests were not dangerous. Would the right hon. Gentleman agree to publish the memorandum by Sir Bernard Lovell and the comments of the British scientists on the matter?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir. I do not think that would be the right thing to do. Sir Bernard Lovell's communication was sent through our British scientists.

Oral Answers to Questions — SCOTTISH DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY

Sir D. Robertson: asked the Prime Minister if he is aware of Scotland's unsatisfactory economic situation which has resulted in unemployment, emigration, depopulation, maldistribution of the population, and the misuse of land and resources; and if he will now set up a Scottish development authority with similar powers to those in Northern Ireland.

The Prime Minister: I am aware that considerable efforts are still required to build up the right balance of production in the Scottish economy, and this remains a fundamental objective of Government policy. I am not, however, satisfied that a new agency—even if its powers, functions and responsibilities to Ministers and Parliament could be suitably defined—is the proper or necessary instrument to secure this.

Sir D. Robertson: Does the Prime Minister realise that the only times in this century when Scotland enjoyed full employment were during the First and Second World Wars and for short periods thereafter? Is he aware that this


situation has become chronic and that unless some step is taken quickly to remedy it very serious unemployment will ensue?

The Prime Minister: We are aware of that and we are trying to take steps. I am answering a particular Question whether setting up the agency which the hon. Member has in mind would be a useful instrument, and I cannot honestly say, with some experience of Government, that I think it would be.

Mr. Grimond: If the Prime Minister is unwilling to set up an agency of this sort for the whole of Scotland, necessary though that seems to be, may I ask whether he will consider combining bodies which deal with these matters in the Highland area into a Highland development authority?

The Prime Minister: I will consider that.

Sir J. Duncan: Is my right hon. Friend aware that although there is a lot more to be done in Scotland, this picture of gloom and despair is not a true picture of Scotland today, and that if this sort of picture were publicised abroad it would discourage anybody from providing employment in Scotland?

The Prime Minister: That is of the very greatest importance, and I would point out that while we should like to see lower figures of unemployment in certain areas, particularly in Scotland. compared with those in some of the great countries of the world these are still very low figures.

Mr. G. Brown: Is the Prime Minister aware that his original Answer to the Question is completely at variance with the statement made by the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade as recently as last Friday to the Scottish Council of Industry, when the hon. Gentleman said that there were no problems in Scotland and no special help was required to overcome problems? Would the right hon. Gentleman have a word with his hon. Friend and get the respective replies into line?

The Prime Minister: I think that it is all right because the Board of Trade gave me the Answer.

Oral Answers to Questions — COMMONWEALTH PREFERENCE

Mr. Biggs-Davison: asked the Prime Minister on what occasions he proposed to other Commonwealth Prime Ministers that the Commonwealth Governments should severally or collectively move to modify the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, or take other action, so as to allow the adaptation of the Ottawa Agreements to changed conditions and secure the continuance of effective reciprocity in Commonwealth preferential arrangements and their reconciliation with European economic arrangements.

The Prime Minister: None, Sir. But I would refer my hon. Friend to the final communiqué of the Commonwealth Economic Conference in 1952. This Conference was unable to support a proposal put forward by the United Kingdom Government to seek release from the "no new preference rule" in the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: In view of all that has happened since, does my right hon. Friend not think that perhaps public opinion is now ready for such an initiative?

The Prime Minister: This is, of course, a difficult question, but I think that my hon. Friend would be right to refer again to paragraph 16 and the unanimity with which the British Government's proposal was turned down.

Oral Answers to Questions — BRITISH INDEPENDENT DETERRENT

Mr. H. Wilson: asked the Prime Minister what recent official communication he has received from the President of the United States of America concerning the maintenance of independent nuclear deterrents by members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the related question of measures to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons to countries not at present in possession of them.

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Prime Minister what representations he has received from President Kennedy on the


subject of a British independent nuclear defence and the creation of a stronger conventional force in Europe.

Mr. Zilliacus: asked the Prime Minister, in view of the present United States Government policy with regard to the maintenance of national nuclear forces, what further discussions he has had with the President of the United States about the maintenance and use of British nuclear weapons within the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Rankin: asked the Prime Minister what modifications he has made in defence policy in so far as it affects possession of the independent nuclear deterrent by the United Kingdom as the result of representations which have been made by President Kennedy.

The Prime Minister: The British independent deterrent is the creation of successive British Governments of both parties. The British Government of the day is, of course, constitutionally free to determine upon the use of this power. Nevertheless, as a matter of practice, there has been joint planning between the British and American authorities against any future emergency. What may be the ultimate development of European defence is a matter for consideration in accordance with changing circumstances.

Mr. Wilson: Since we are told that, following some rather passionate diplomatic exchanges last week, the United States Government and the British Government are now agreed in condemning the idea of independent nuclear deterrents which are capable of operating independently, may I ask whether the right hon. Gentleman would say whether it is now the policy of Her Majesty's Government to have an independent nuclear deterrent capable of operating independently and whether they think they have got one?

The Prime Minister: With regard to the second part of the question, I would not accept that as the outcome of these exchanges. It is for us to decide what we are to do, and we have to recognise, and I do recognise, that France is now a nuclear Power and is likely to remain one. There are, on the other hand, great problems which can be discussed as to the future. For the present we have this

independent deterrent, created, as I have said, after fifteen years' effort. There are very strong reasons for maintaining it, and we intend so to do.

Mr. Shinwell: Would the Prime Minister say whether, as a result of representations made from the United States and as a result of conversations between the United States Secretary of Defence and our own Minister of Defence, it is the intention to increase our conventional forces in the West and whether there is any intention, as a result of these representations, of revising the nuclear position so that instead of having a British independent deterrent we have a nuclear N.A.T.O. deterrent?

The Prime Minister: That is covered by the second part of the Answer. The ultimate future of what may be a European defence system must be adapted to changing circumstances. At the present time our position is well understood by our allies and accepted by them.

Mr. Zilliacus: Is not the present position that the British independent nuclear deterrent is fully integrated with the American defence forces?[Laughter.] I apologise for my taste in ties being blue though my opinions are red. May I ask the question again? Is not the present arrangement that British nuclear defence forces are fully integrated with the Americans and therefore, although theoretically independent, the understanding is that they are not to be used except as part of operations approved by the United States and commanded by the United States?

The Prime Minister: No, Sir, that is not so. The American nuclear forces in this country are, of course, governed by special agreement, negotiated I think by the Prime Minister of the last Labour Administration, by which they cannot be used without the permission of the British Prime Minister and the Government of the day. That is because their forces are located in this country. Our forces in this country, although in practice the targets are discussed and arranged between us, are completely under our control.

Mr. Rankin: Is the Prime Minister not aware that the Minister of Defence has repeatedly told us that the British bomber force is closely integrated into


the American nuclear force? In view of that, may I ask how it can be used independently? Does the right hon. Gentleman not think that the determination of France to have the bomb was promoted by our decision to have an independent bomb?

The Prime Minister: With regard to the second part of that question, I do not think that is so. With regard to the first part, "integrated" is a very vague word. I do not know what is meant by that. What is decided is that the actual planning is, of course, a matter of practice agreed between us. The American forces in this country are under a special agreement. The sovereignty, the power of control, rests with Her Majesty's Ministers for the time being and the officers concerned would follow the instructions given to them by the Government of the day.

Mr. Eden: Is it not a fact that the United States of America fully recognises the value of the contribution that the British V-bomber force can make and is now making to the defence of the West, and is it not a fact also that, when equipped with Blue Steel and, subsequently, with Skybolt, a weapon to be purchased by Britain, it will be a wholly independent force under independent political control should the need arise?

The Prime Minister: It is, of course, a very strong and powerful force and is at present one of the main parts of the deterrent located in this part of the Western world. At the same time, these forces, although we with our allies make joint plans, are constitutionally under the sovereignty of the Government of the day. That is the point, and in that sense they are independent.

Mr. Gaitskell: Is it not perfectly clear that Mr. McNamara made a very powerful attack upon independent use of nuclear weapons independent of the Western Alliance? Will the Prime Minister tell us exactly what the position is? If the British Government are free, as I understand he claims, to use the nuclear deterrent as they wish, how can this possibly be reconciled with Mr. McNamara's position?

The Prime Minister: I am not responsible for what Mr. McNamara may

have said. I remind the right hon. Gentleman that in the debate in 1960 he gave—summing up the point better than ever before, I thought—the very strong reasons why it was desirable that we should have and continue to have an independent deterrent.

Mr. Gaitskell: Will the Prime Minister answer my question? Is not he aware that there is here a very important confusion which ought to be cleared up? What exactly is the position of the British Government? Are they free to use their nuclear weapons as they think without consultation or agreement with the United States? If that is the case, how can it be held to be consistent with Mr. McNamara's position?

The Prime Minister: As I explained, the British Government are free because the forces are located here, but the American Government are not free in respect of forces located here, under the Attlee agreement. There are then the American forces outside Europe. As a matter of practice, there is an understanding which I had with President Eisenhower and now have with President Kennedy that neither of us in any part of the world would think of using power of this kind without consultation with each other; but that does not take away the independent right of both the American and the British Government.

Mr. Grimond: Does not the Prime Minister think that one of the greatest dangers facing the world is the proliferation of nuclear weapons, and does not he find it extremely difficult to bring pressure on other countries to forgo arming themselves with nuclear weapons so long as we insist upon maintaining this so-called independent nuclear deterrent?

The Prime Minister: The right hon. Gentleman may be right in that. France is a nuclear Power and, I think, is likely to remain one, and the British Government quite understand the reasons for French Government policy. I should not have thought that if we suddenly said, "All right; we will destroy all our weapons", we should put ourselves in a much better arguing position.

Mr. Hastings: Will my right hon. Friend agree that it is in principle unwise to permit or encourage the concentration of ultimate military power, with


all that that connotes, in the hands of one member of the Alliance, and does not he think that the statement by Mr. McNamara accords somewhat strangely with professed American support for a strong independent Europe?

The Prime Minister: I think that it would be very unwise for me to comment on this statement. People make all sorts of statements. What I do say is that we have a perfectly clear understanding. The American Government respect our position and we understand and respect theirs.

Mr. Gaitskell: But are we to understand from the Prime Minister's reply to the right hon. Member for Orkney and Shetland (Mr. Grimond) that the Government are indifferent to the danger of the spread of nuclear weapons? If not, how on earth can the Government take the line of saying that they must have the right independently to use the nuclear weapon and yet proceed to try to deny it to other people? If they do not try to deny it to other people, how are they to stop the spread?

The Prime Minister: This is what we are trying to do through the disarmament arrangements and through some much wider plan. I remind the right hon. Gentleman of the statement which he made. He said—and I think that there is something in it—
The real case for our having our own independent nuclear weapons is fear of excessive dependence upon the United States … which might force upon us policies with which we did not agree, because we would be in such a weak position to argue."—[OFFICIAL REPORT, 1st March. 1960; Vol. 618, c. 1136–7.]

Mr. Gaitskell: Is not the Prime Minister aware that that, of course, was part of a very elaborate argument in which both sides of the case were carefully examined? Will he, please, return to the question put to him from this side of the House? What does he propose to do to stop the spread of nuclear weapons within the N.A.T.O. Alliance? If he is prepared to agree that there must always be consultation with the United States Government before any possible use of nuclear weapons, will not he go further and say that, in fact, it is his desire that neither side should independently decide to use nuclear weapons without the consent of the other?

The Prime Minister: Of course, there are only the two Powers which have effective nuclear weapons at present. France will become a nuclear Power, but it is not yet so fully. That, of course, involves very difficult questions which we must all consider together. There is the ultimate purpose of abolishing all these weapons. We must not relinquish that. There is the other purpose, as the Alliance proceeds, of seeing that we make the best arrangements with each other. At the moment, as things stand, what I have stated to be the position of the British Government is, in fact, so and I think that there are powerful arguments against, prematurely at any rate, throwing away both this weapon and this arguing position.

B.O.A.C.-CUNARD MERGER

The following Question stood upon the Order Paper:

Mr. LEE: To ask the Minister of Aviation whether he will make a statement giving details of the financial arrangements under which British Overseas Airways Corporation-Cunard Ltd. will function; and what provision has been made in the agreement regarding the effects upon this company of a change of ownership of the Cunard Steam-ship Co. Ltd.

The Minister of Aviation (Mr. Peter Thorneyeroft): With permission, I will now answer Question No. 54. Yes, Sir. The decision of British Overseas Airways Corporation and Cunard to join forces has my full support.
Airlines on the Atlantic have suffered severe losses because of the setback in the growth of traffic and excess of capacity. The United Kingdom is facing fierce competition on these routes and by concentrating their capacity, maintenance facilities, sales effort and managerial experience, B.O.A.C. and Cunard should strengthen the British civil aviation effort in this vital area.
B.O.A.C.-Cunard Ltd. will have a capital of £30 million, of which B.O.A.C. will contribute 70 per cent. and the Cunard Company 30 per cent. Profits and losses will be shared in proportion to the holdings of capital. B.O.A.C.'s contribution to the capital of the company will not involve it in any additional borrowing from the Exchequer.
B.O.A.C. will operate the new company's aircraft on its behalf and charge the company a price to cover full costs. The financial results, so far as they affect the Corporation, will be presented to Parliament in the customary detail.
As regards any possible change in the ownership of the Cunard Steam-ship Company, Ltd., B.O.A.C. retain the right to call for the transfer to itself of the 30 per cent. Cunard holding.

Mr. Lee: I am obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for making that statement, but is he aware that we on this side of the House are very dissatisfied with the way in which the announcement of the formation of this company was made? We are now discussing the matter after the company has begun to fly the route.
The right hon. Gentleman has just spoken about excess capacity. Will he explain what B.O.A.C. has to gain from capacity additional to the surplus capacity it already has, represented by two Boeings, from which, apparently, Cunard may get 30 per cent. of the takings?
From the point of view of the House, will the Minister say what Ministerial responsibility to the House he now has for this new company? In other words, do we treat it as a nationalised concern? Can we put down Questions or debate its affairs as we should those of B.O.A.C. as a nationalised concern? Further, since there have been losses by both these companies during the past year, and the North Atlantic routes are still showing losses, will the Minister bear the losses on Cunard, if this situation unfortunately continues?
Is it not obvious that the only reason why B.O.A.C. has done this is that it is afraid of the Air Transport Licensing Board and the licences which might be given? Will the right hon. Gentleman now tell us what Government policy is? We had, first, a public monopoly broken on the Atlantic by the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act, 1960, in the interests of free competition. Now we have the Minister conniving at the creation of a monopoly, with the independents inside it, to ensure that we do not suffer the disadvantages of wasteful competition. What is now to happen to the Act of 1960?

Mr. Thorneycroft: Whatever else can be said about this arrangement, it is certainly not a monopoly. This company will be faced with fierce competition on the North Atlantic and my belief is—and this belief is shared by the Chairman of B.O.A.C.—that it will advantage B.O.A.C., which is a great public corporation, to share and pool its capacity, its managerial experience, its sales offices and the like in this sphere of operations.
The losses will be borne in proportion to the way in which the capital is being put up. Cunard, in this respect, will, of course, bear its own losses.

Mr. P. Williams: is my right hon. Friend aware that there are some hon. Members on this side of the House who still believe in a greater degree of competition? Although international airlines are going through what we hope are temporary difficulties, we should be able to take a long-term view and hope that these two concerns will, in future, be able to compete. If this was the object of the Civil Aviation (Licensing) Act of two years ago, why did we waste our time passing it if we now set about amalgamating these two concerns?

Mr. Thorneycroft: If my hon. Friend will study the Act and the debate on the Bill which took place at that time, he will see that my predecessor in no way said that every airline had to compete with every other airline. My predecessor said then that there were many instances in which co-operation was the better answer.

Mr. Rankin: Has the Minister forgotten that the competition to which he just referred was in existence before the Bill became an Act and that his predecessor was constantly reminded of that during the passage of the Bill? If B.E.A. now decides to take over incompetent private airlines, will the right hon. Gentleman give the same welcome to it as he has given to B.O.A.C. when it shows that public enterprise is a better form of organisation in the air than private enterprise?
Finally, can he assure the House that the wages and conditions of employees of Cunard who are being taken over will be raised to the same level as those operating in B.O.A.C.?

Mr. Thorneycroft: I will, naturally, judge any case on its merits as it comes forward. In my personal belief, a merger of public and private enterprise to anyone who is not completely doctrinaire in these matters may well serve a very useful purpose.

BRITISH TROOPS, B.A.O.R. (INCIDENTS)

Mr. Paget: (by Private Notice) asked the Secretary of State for War whether he will make a statement on the incident involving British troops at Schneverdingen, on Sunday, 24th June, and the incident involving British officers at Putlos, on 25th June.

The Secretary of State for War (Mr. John Profumo): The hon. and learned Gentleman's question relates to two separate incidents.
According to the information at present available to me, the circumstances of the Putlos incident were as follows. On the evening of Saturday, 23rd June, after bathing and visiting a civilian holiday camp at Putlos, near Kiel, four British officers were going home in pairs when two of them were attacked by Some unknown assailants.
They were both knocked unconscious. I regret that one has a fractured skull, but is not on the danger list. The other was not seriously hurt. Their families have been informed. Inquiries, both military and civilian, are now in process.
The other incident occurred in the early hours of Sunday, 24th June, when damage was done to civilian property in the town of Schneverdingen, near Lueneburg Heath.
Eight men of 40 Field Regiment R.A., which was training in the area, are in close arrest, and others will be interviewed. Inquiries are being made to determine what disciplinary action should be taken. This will probably involve courts-martial and the unit has already been moved away.
As a result, I asked the Commander-in-Chief, B.A.O.R., to come and see me yesterday. He reassured me that this latter incident and others that have recently occurred have been caused by a small and irresponsible minority of troublemakers who do not reflect the

conduct of the British Army of the Rhine as a whole—I am sure that this is so.
However, in the interests of the good name of the Army, and because of our responsibilities to the individual soldier, General Cassels has decided—with my approval—that unmarried soldiers living in barracks shall not in future, normally, be allowed out of their barracks after midnight, unless they have a pass.
In administering this provision, latitude will be given to commanding officers so that sensible concessions shall be made to those who make reasonable requests to be out after that hour.

Mr. Paget: Is this not a rather unfortunate concession to what has really been a Press campaign? As the right hon. Gentleman knows, I have recently come back from Germany. The ill-feeling between the Germans and the British troops there was, as far as I could make out from fairly wide inquiries, something which they have read about in the Press, but have not experienced. Indeed, to some degree, is it not to the credit of the British Army of the Rhine that when the Press desired a campaign against the right hon. Gentleman all they could really discover was that in the early part of April some "Jocks" had beaten up a "honkey tonk" one night?
I do not know whether I am somewhat out of date, but in my day it would have been news if two months had gone by without "Jocks" doing something like that. On the other hand, this latest incident does appear to have been much more serious and, of course, if the Press does loudly and strongly enough tell people that there is bad feeling, bad feeling is apt to be created.
In these circumstances, is it not very unjust to punish the British troops? Is not the impression which the right hon. Gentleman creates one of weakness, subservience and surrender to a very unworthy campaign? Would it not be far better to refer this matter to the Press Council for investigation?

Mr. Profumo: I have very great sympathy for much of what the hon. and learned Gentleman has said, particularly since he has just come back from B.A.O.R. The measures which I have announced—which I have decided to take in consultation with General Cassels—are by no means punishment. They are designed to protect men from


the danger of wandering about in the early hours of the morning in a foreign country, when, as we have seen, unhappy incidents are likely to take place. Perhaps the House will recollect that this is something which has occurred throughout the history of the British Army and has only just been altered, in 1961.
I give the hon. and learned Gentleman the undertaking that it is only to protect our troops and that this will be administered in the fairest possible way.

Mr. P. Williams: Can my right hon. Friend say that the measure which he has announced is just temporary and will be, so to speak, a pause in these relationship's with the Germans and that it will be brought to an end as soon as possible?

Mr. Profumo: If I were to say that it was only a temporary measure, it would appear to be a punishment. I would not want anything to be permanent, but I should like to remind the House that all we are doing is to fall in line with the custom carried out by other troops in N.A.T.O.

Mr. Pentland: Is the Minister aware that 24 hours ago many hon. Members on this side representing North-East constituencies had consultations with the officers, the commander and other ranks of the D.L.I. in Berlin and that we were very pleased to hear from the men there that relations between the civilian population in West Berlin and the D.L.I. and Welsh Regiments stationed there were first-class? However, we were also given to understand by long-service N.C.O.s—sergeants and other ranks—who had spent many years in West Germany outside Berlin that a good deal of animosity by the German population against our troops prevails, and has prevailed for a long time. Therefore, will the right hon. Gentleman consider having a full inquiry by responsible people in West Germany in order to get to the bottom of what is happening there before further trouble arises?

Mr. Profumo: The hon. Gentleman is speaking about West Berlin rather than B.A.O.R. I should say that relations between British troops and the German population vary very much from place to place and that in some places, like Berlin, the relationship is very good indeed. I do not think that

this is a matter on which one can generalise and I am equally sure that this is not a subject into which we should have an inquiry at the moment.

Mr. Biggs-Davison: Have the Government any information suggesting that there has been provocation of British troops by elements in the neo-Nazi minority in the Federal German Republic?

Mr. Profumo: Up to the present I have had no information leading me to that conclusion. However, if I did get any information about provocation, I would immediately take it up with the German authorities.

Mr. Gordon Walker: My impression from a slightly earlier visit to B.A.O.R. was that the real need is to provide greater occupation, greater relaxation for men, particularly unmarried men, in barracks. Has the right hon. Gentleman inquired whether there has been a disproportionate involvement of retained National Service men in these incidents?

Mr. Profumo: I entirely agree with the first part of what the right hon. Gentleman says. We are always trying to see what we can do to make the leisure hours of the soldier serving abroad fuller and more interesting. If any hon. Member has any ideas, I shall be very ready to look at them—[Laughter.]—any ideas which I could fall in with.
On the second part of the right hon. Gentleman's question, as far as I can make out, there is no relation at all between the retained National Service men and these widely spaced incidents. The only case of a National Service man being involved in the cases under review is the one who may be involved in the latest incident.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: The Cameronians have one idea that they would like to give to the right hon. Gentleman, and that is that they want to be sent home. Can the Minister tell us anything about the so-called trouble makers? Is he aware that men who have been dismissed from the Army for causing trouble say that they are as pleased as Punch? Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that all the Cameronians would be as pleased as Punch if the Government brought them home?

Mr. Profumo: I do not share the hon. Gentleman's view in this matter, as in any other military matter.

Sir A. V. Harvey: Can my right hon. Friend confirm that the regulations to which he referred do not apply to Royal Air Force personnel in Germany?

Mr. Profumo: I am speaking only for the British Army of the Rhine.

Mr. Shinwell: While agreeing with the Minister that nothing should be said or done which in any way disturbs or affects the prestige of the British Army, will not he agree that, irrespective of what has been said by some hon. Members about relations between the Germans and our troops, the impression has been created that it is the British soldier who has been at fault, while there has been a complete disregard of the attitude of many Germans in the West? Would the right hon. Gentleman therefore have a full inquiry on the spot conducted, not through a court-martial, but, if he would prefer it and since he has asked for ideas, by hon. Members from both sides of the House in order to ascertain who is really at fault?
Finally, the Minister should not in any circumstances impose further discipline on innocent troops simply because of the actions of a few.

Mr. Profumo: I do not think that there is any cause for inquiries other than those which are at present in train. Many hon. Members have been to B.A.O.R. and have just returned. I have no intention of imposing any discipline on innocent troops in B.A.O.R. These are protective measures, and I am content to leave the handling of discipline of B.A.O.R. to the Commander-in-Chief.

Several Hon. Members: Several Hon. Members rose——

Mr. Speaker: Order. We cannot debate this matter without a Question being before the House.

NEW MEMBERS SWORN

Jeremy William Bray, esquire, for Middlesbrough, West.

Aidan Merivale Crawley, esquire, for West Derbyshire.

Tam Dalyell, esquire, for West Lothian.

SUPPLY

[20TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir WILLIAM ANSTRUTHER-GRAY in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1962–63

Motion made, and Question proposed,
That a further sum, not exceeding £30, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the year ending on the 31st day of March, 1963, for the following services connected with Distribution of Industry, namely:—


CIVIL ESTIMATES, 1962–63



£


Class IV, Vote 1, Board of Trade
10


Class IV, Vote 3, Board of Trade (Promotion of Local Employment)
10


Class IV, Vote 6, Ministry of Labour
10


Total
£30

DISTRIBUTION OF INDUSTRY

4.1 p.m.

Mr. Douglas Jay: The two new hon. Members from Scotland and the North-East Coast who have taken their seats in the House this afternoon should be sufficient warning to wake up the Government, if nothing else can, to the anxious fears of underemployment and unemployment which affect so many of our industrial areas at the present time.
In West Lothian, and in most of Scotland, unemployment and depopulation axe realities, and are deeply felt and resented. In Middlesbrough, and, indeed, the rest of Tees-side, the iron and steel recession, directly caused, incidentally, by the Chancellor's measures of last July, and declining shipbuilding and ship-repairing work, are spreading the old anxieties and fears again. The results of this summer's by-elections are really a vote of censure on the policies of the Government which have allowed these unnecessary conditions to return.
Two actions of the Government have brought back depression to these areas. First, there is the panicky succession of fits and starts which the Chancellor has calls an economic policy, which now lies in such ruins that one waits with trepidation to see what he will do next. The right hon. and learned Gentleman based his Budget this year on the assumption that a continued American expansion would result in higher exports and further expansion for the United Kingdom.
That assumption has already been proved false, and I believe that, in consequence, the Chancellor's Budget has been proved too deflationary already. Normally, the present Chancellor's Budget calculations are proved wrong by July. This year, following his conversion to planning, his Budget has been proved wrong before midsummer. Already, the industrial production index has experienced yet another drop, and as the present Chancellor blunders on from one fiasco to another it is the under-employed areas which always feel the cold wind first. I should have thought that, in view of the present American situation, one thing the Chancellor should do is to make a further reduction in the Bank Rate forthwith—this week.
Secondly, the Government have utterly failed to use adequately the powers given to them by this House in the Local Employment Act, 1960, and other Acts, to check the flow of employment in this country from the North and West to the Midlands and the South-East. In particular, they have allowed the growth of office employment in Greater London to get completely out of hand. Therefore, we find that, quite apart from the under-employment which is very serious in a great many areas, the latest figures show that unemployment is 100,000 higher than in 1961 and that the actual numbers are nearly double the level of 1951 or 1955.
There are still acute differences between the favoured and the less favoured areas. The towns with the lowest unemployment percentages in the country at the moment are Oxford, with 0·5 per cent., and Cambridge, with 0·6 per cent. They are "all right, Jack". But Wales, as a whole, still has 3 per cent., the North-East Coast 3·4 per cent.,

and Scotland 3·7 per cent., that is to say, seven times the level of Oxford and some other parts of the Midlands. In parts of the North-East Coast and Scotland, there are areas like The Hartle-pools with over 6 per cent., and there are a deplorable number of areas in Scotland itself, such as Greenock, Port Glasgow, Bathgate and Broxburn, with over 7 per cent., and some, like the Peterhead and Fraserburgh area, as high as 10 per cent. at present.
There is no serious doubt now about the cause of the re-emergence of this economic disease, or about the measures necessary to cure it. The cause simply is that, given the unplanned, laissez-faire world in which hon. Members opposite really believe, there is an irresistible tendency for employment and population, with gathering speed, to move into the South-East corner of these islands, causing intolerable congestion and housing shortages there, and, therefore, leaving the North and West in a state of depopulation and under-employment.
The cure is the determined control of the building of all new places of employment in the congested areas, combined with the construction of factories and industrial estates by the Government themselves in the under-employed areas. If they did those two things decisively, they would succeed without having to do very much else. But if they do not do them, whatever else they do will certainly fail. That is proved incontestably by what was actually achieved in the six years after the war by the results of the application of these policies. Let us take Scotland. Compared with the 20 or 25 per cent. unemployment which Scotland knew at times in the 1930s, the percentage had been brought down to 2·0 by June of 1951. After another eleven years of effort by the present Government, it has now gone up to 3·7 per cent. In the North-East Coast, it was actually down to 1·8 per cent. in June, 1951, and is now back to 3·4 per cent. What an eloquent comment these figures are on the story of those years, and how well, evidently, they are understood by the electors of West Lothian and Middlesbrough.
Let us now look at the story rather more closely. The areas classified as development areas under the 1945 Distribution of Industry Act included


Scotland, the North-East Coast, Wales and elsewhere and about 15 per cent. of the population of Great Britain. Before 1939, they had been getting barely 5 per cent. of the total new factory space built. From 1945 to 1947, they got 45 per cent. of the new factory space, and through the whole of the six-year period from 1945 to 1951 they got 30 per cent. London and the South-East region, which got about 50 per cent. of the factory space before 1939, had its proportion cut to 12·3 per cent. in those years after the war. That turned the tide, hence the low unemployment percentages in Scotland and these other districts in 1951.
Then the era of Tory freedom began, and the old evil forces at once began to reassert themselves. London's percentage of new buildings had actually risen from 12·3 per cent. in 1951 to 21 per cent. by 1958. Worse than this, the development areas, which, incidentally, by the later years, had increased their populations from 15 per cent. to 18 per cent. of the national total, found that their own share had fallen to 18·6 per cent. by 1958–59. That is the main cause of the re-emerging muddle in which we now find ourselves, both in London and in the North-East. Do not let us forget that from 1957 to 1959, the present Ministers of Education and Aviation, when they were President of the Board of Trade, in effect suspended the working of the distribution of industry policy altogether. Some of those in Scotland and elsewhere who are now suffering should realise that they owe their troubles to the irresponsibility of those two Ministers.
Then we had the present Colonial Secretary, who is a little less doctrinaire. Under a great deal of pressure from this side of the House the right hon. Gentleman did rather better. He tried to put some control on London factory building, and did, in fact, persuade the great motor firms to go to Scotland and to Merseyside. I can assure the present Ministers at the Board of Trade that if they will take our advice, we shall always give them our support, as we did to the then Minister in that case.
The latest figures which I have—I hope that the Parliamentary Secretary will have later ones—show that the percentages of approvals going to London and

the South-East Region fell from 21 per cent. in 1958, and 18 per cent. in 1959, to 12 per cent. again in 1960; and that the percentage going to the development districts, as they have now become, rose from 10 per cent. to 15 per cent. in 1959 and to 20 per cent. in 1960. That is some slight improvement, due, no doubt, to the spur of the General Election in 1959. But it is not nearly good enough. We have not yet got the development area share back to anything like the figure of 30 per cent. for pre-1951.

Mr. J. T. Price: When we are discussing the effect of Government restriction on the growth of factory development in London we ought also to remember that, while there has been a substantial growth in the amount of floor space available for factories in the London area, there has been more than a corresponding increase in the floor space allowed for office accommodation; and, that on balance, the amount of capital resources ploughed into London is greater than in the years to which my right hon. Friend has referred.

Mr. Jay: I am coming to that point, with which I shall deal at some length, but, I hope, at not too great a length.
I should like the Parliamentary Secretary, if he can, to give the House some corresponding figures for 1961. The first Report of the Board of Trade on the Local Employment Act shows that in all this it may well be misleading to consider only London and the South-East Region. For instance, in the year up to March, 1961, according to that Report, London's share of additional factory employment approved was barely half of London's share of the population. The shares of Scotland and Wales were considerably larger than their shares of the population. So far, so good. But I think that the House Should know that the Eastern Region—East Anglia and the Eastern outskirts of London—had a proportion which was double its population.
That, of course, is due to the new towns policy. The new towns are sucking industry and population rapidly into East Anglia. When new towns in East Anglia suck population and employment out of London, that is highly


desirable. But we must face the fact that if they are sucking population out of Scotland and the North that may not be so desirable. I do not believe that at present we are quite certain which of those things is happening. I suggest to the President of the Board of Trade that there are two practical ways in which we might see that the right thing is happening and not the wrong thing.
First, we ought to lay down that firms moving out of London into the new towns in the South, and building or taking on new factories in those new towns, should sell to the Government the factories which they have abandoned to be used for storage or to be removed to provide housing sites. In that way we should ensure that other firms do not come to London to replace those firms which have left. Secondly, I think that we should move much further towards a policy of allocating houses in new towns not just to anyone who can get a job and who may come from anywhere, but to people who are on the housing lists of local authorities in London and whom we know really need the houses. If we do this, we shall be doing much more to ensure that the new towns are helping to improve the situation and not making it worse.
The other deplorable failure of the Government was referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Westhoughton (Mr. J. T. Price). It is their refusal to tackle the crucial issue of control over office employment. In 1945, it may or it may not have been excusable to have failed to foresee that new office employment would, in ten years, be as important as factory employment. But it is certainly inexcusable to have failed to realise since 1955 that office employment forms a very high proportion of the new employment being created; and that, therefore, its control is crucial in deciding the distribution of employment and population between the regions and, of course, the possibility of decent housing, town planning, transport controls and all the rest of it either in the congested or the underemployed areas. The failure of the Government to act on this, or even to understand it, seems to me to be the main cause of the present unhappy state of Scotland and the other under-employed areas. I believe that a very few figures will prove this.
Office employment in Central London alone is now increasing at a rate of over 15,000 people a year; and of the additional employment created in Greater London throughout the 1950s less than 20 per cent. was covered by industrial development certificates. So 80 per cent. of the new employment in the South-East is now outside the control of I.D.C.s and the Local Employment Act altogether. Surely this alone explains to a great extent the depopulation in the North and the scandal created by the housing shortage and inflated land values throughout the London area.
As a result of this, in the ten years up to 1958, planning permission—not I.D.C.s; they are not necessary—was granted for 44·4 million sq. ft. of new office space in Central London alone. That is sufficient to provide employment for 300,000 more people, or four times the total of the unemployed persons in Scotland. Altogether, in an area within 40 miles of the centre of London, where there is 27 per cent. of the population of England and Wales, some 45 per cent. of all the new jobs were created in the Whole of England and Wales between 1952 and 1959. It is as a result of this that once more, in the last ten years, the flow of population to the South-East set in irresistably.
What have the Government done on top of all this pressure of migration into the South-East? They committed the supreme folly of passing the 1957 Rent Act which had the effect of throwing on to the market rented housing in London which was previously controlled. This was partly achieved by means of evictions, and the accommodation was able to be bought up by people coming in from outside. Undoubtedly, by this means the Rent Act facilitated and speeded up the in-flow and made the unbalance worse. At present it has made insoluble the problem caused by the housing shortage in London.
In London 20,000 houses a year are now being decontrolled and, in this way, being made available for sale. As a result, new population presses on the inadequate stock of housing and, exactly as one would expect, the final effect of the whole muddle is that the rising residue of homeless families thrown on to London local authorities is vaster than they can cope with, by means of the facilities at their disposal.
That is one side of the picture, but I think that we must also remember the other side. As a nation, we cannot secure the maximum production and economic expansion which we should like from our economy until all the areas in the country are fully employed. The development of the under-employed areas is a first necessity in the efficient use of our whole economy. The Government often quote the labour force which comes from East Germany as one of the reasons for the economic growth of West Germany in the 1950s. But we have 500,000 workers in our own country who are not being used. If we could bring them into our productive machine, we should be able to expand much faster without being inhibited by the fear of inflation and shortage in the congested areas. That is the reason, it is an economic as well as a social cause, for a more vigorous policy to check the process now going on.
I do not think that I need describe the facts in any more detail. They are obvious enough and well known by now. What is needed is to draw the right morals and take the necessary action without further delay. First, I invite the Government to make the changes in new towns policy which I have mentioned. Next, the President of the Board of Trade must use more resolutely the distribution of industry powers that he has. He must hold down with industrial development certificates new factory expansion, including extensions, in the congested areas to the very minimum, and by this I mean something a good deal lower than what is being permitted at present. Then, when he has done that and has thereby made sure that there are plenty of expansion schemes coming forward looking for sites, he must push on boldly with a positive policy of building more advance factories in the worst hit areas—those where employment is running at 6 to 7 per cent.—with Government finance.
Next, and most important, Ministers must tackle the office building problem if they want their sincerity in this to be taken seriously at all. If we look at this problem, there are two major practical obstacles in the way of progress, and we must have the courage to face them. First, office building is Wholly exempt from due I.D.C. system and is, therefore,

not controlled by any national authority responsible for employment policy. This is the root of the trouble.
A legal right has been given—and I admit that this springs originally from the Labour Government's Act, but we should learn by our mistakes—to any owner, where no change of use is involved, to replace old office space with new in such a way as often to double, or nearly double, its employment capacity, or, if he is not given permission, to demand compensation on a level which local authorities find intolerable. The irony of it is that it is lack of control which pushes up values to levels which make it impossible to grant the compensation to regain control, as long as the responsibility is left with local authorities.
Offices normally employ more persons per square foot than any other form of employment; yet we have allowed a system to grow up in which offices are controlled by reference to cubic footage while factories are, in effect, controlled by the Board of Trade with reference to employment capacity. In addition, as I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows, the owner who proposes to build new office space is allowed an extra 10 per cent. on the cubic capacity of the old building unless compensation is paid to him for it.
I suggest that the Government should accept these proposals. If they do not, I hope that they will suggest some effective alternatives. First, the I.D.C. system in some appropriate form should be applied to office development. The Government's objection to this—and we have constantly put forward this suggestion in the House—is a purely bureaucratic one. They say that it is impossible to apply the I.D.C. system to office development, because, whereas factories are built for specific demands, offices are very often built speculatively to be let to anybody who turns up and asks for it.
That is not wholly true, because I am sure the right hon. Gentleman knows that a firm like Slough Estates has built factories speculatively for an unknown tenant. But even if it were true, it would be irrelevant. Even though an office block is built for an unknown tenant, it is possible to refuse permission to Mr. Clore to build an office block, just as it


is possible for the President of the Board of Trade to refuse the Ford Motor Company permission to build a factory. There is no substance in the Government's argument.
The Government must also tackle the question of the granting of planning permission for this office development, and with it the compensation problem. Here, at least, we ought to be sure—and I hope that the Government can assure us that this is so—that permissions are not now being given to build offices in the Greater London area where a change of use is involved. It is possible to refuse these permissions without compensation, and I hope we can be assured that that is being done.
Next, the law could well be amended to lay down that even where there is no change of use—I am sorry if this is complicated, but I think that this is the crux of the matter—compensation is payable only in the case of new office building employing no more than the previous one. If we could do that, it would enormously ease the pressure. That is what the law ought to have laid down anyway, but as it did not it seems to me time that it was amended. As the Minister of Housing and Local Government said in December that he was earnestly and actively considering this problem, I hope that the Government will say whether they propose to make a change in this additional 10 per cent. of capacity, which adds to the difficulties.
It is surely obvious that whatever else we do about the land values problem, the burden of compensation due to refusing permission for office development on grounds of national employment policy must be largely, if not wholly, shouldered by the Exchequer and not local authorities. After all, this will be done largely on national grounds, and not just on grounds of local town planning. This is a possible and practicable thing to do and if it is not done, this problem will never be effectively solved.
If the right hon. Gentleman says that all this is very complicated and difficult, and that it will take him his usual months and months of active and earnest consideration before he makes up his mind to do anything, I suggest a simple interim measure which would hold the line meanwhile. Why does not

he introduce building licensing for building schemes other than housing in regions other than Scotland, the North, the North-West, Wales and the South-West? Why does not he leave building free in the areas of under-employment and gain control over it at least in the South and East? If he did that, it would show that he meant business.
Finally, there will be no hope of success in the whole of this tough task—and it is a tough one because we are swimming against a very strong tide—unless the Government show a different spirit from that which they have shown lately. Let me give one example. The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade, who is more responsible for this than anybody else, at Question Time on 10th April, made this remarkable statement:
I do not accept that increased office building … has had an effect on the distribution of industry …
When it was pointed out to him that at least it had had an effect on employment, he made an even more memorable statement:
Matters of employment are matters for my right hon. Friend the Minister of Labour."…[OFFICIAL REPORT, 10th April, 1962; Vol. 657, c. 1121–2.]
The hon. Gentleman is the Minister most closely responsible for this policy. Can we wonder that the situation is what it is, or that Mr. Charles Clore has made £50 million out of this muddle over the last ten years? Surely the hon. Gentleman knows that the whole object of the distribution of industry policy is full employment and full production balanced over the whole country, and that even the employment policy White Paper of 1944 laid it down explicitly that the main responsibility for this rested on the Board of Trade? Does not he know that the Act introduced by his Government in 1959, and administered by his Department and by him—or supposed to be—is called the Local Employment Act? Yet he says in 1962 that employment has nothing to do with him and is a matter for the Minister of Labour.
It is remarks of that kind which are rapidly convincing not only my hon. Friends but the electorate that what we require are a new spirit, new Ministers, and a new Government.

4.30 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade (Mr. Niall Macpherson): The right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) has based his case largely on the statement at the outset of his speech, which he more or less repeated at the end of his remarks, that the Government had utterly failed to use adequately powers given in the Local Employment Act, particularly in relation to office building in London.
The distribution of industry is one of those subjects on which it is a good deal easier to agree on principles than upon the application of those principles in practice. We all agree that Government policy should be directed at retaining a high level of employment and at making the best uses of our manpower. In a free society, however, policy has to be framed against the background of free choice—free choice of the type of work, free choice of where to work and, within certain limitations, free choice of where to set up a factory.
There is a great danger of oversimplification. That employment is available is not enough. There are areas where employment is available and yet depopulation continues and factories are having to close or to move because employers cannot get the labour they need. There are other areas where depopulation has been going on for a long time—for example, Mid-Wales and the Highlands of Scotland. Generally speaking, there is a tendency for urban areas to grow in population at the expense of rural areas and for large towns to grow more than the small towns. Taking the North of England and Scotland as a whole, migration has been on a considerable scale in the ten years from 1951 to 1961. The Government are studying all these trends. The right hon. Member for Battersea, North said that if we used our powers adequately, all would be well. What concerns the Board of Trade particularly is to carry out the Government's policy of trying to bring industry to the areas of high unemployment. That is the duty that is laid upon us by the Local Employment Act. In what I have to say, I hope to show that our efforts have been by no means unsuccessful, in particular since the passing of the Local Employment Act.
Few would not agree in principle that it is essential for our industry to be as efficient as possible, for it to reduce its costs of production in every way acceptable to management and to workers, so that we may be able to compete successfully in world markets. That means that the final choice of location must rest with industry. The industrialist can, of course, be helped by receiving knowledge from the Government of the local facts about labour supply, transport and other factors in his economic equation. The industrial development certificate method and the machinery of the Local Employment Act serve between them to bring these factors to the knowledge of businessmen. My first point is that this service is available and that it is constructive and not simply negative in concept.
Only the man or the company which is setting up a new enterprise can find the right balance between the complex questions involved, such as availability of labour of the right type, the supply and cost of the necessary materials, comparative local costs, the costs of transport and distribution and relations with suppliers, customers and local authorities. If the Government insist upon an industrialist going where they want him to go, who will compensate him for the extra cost of production and who will assess it, and how?
In principle, we would also all agree that it is right not to allow an industry to start up or to expand in an area where there is a scarcity of labour when other areas have a surplus. Apart from the waste of manpower and the human tragedy involved in unemployment, this can be done only at the expense of other enterprises by bidding up the price of labour and raising costs of production all round. In theory, the efficient firms would take labour from the less efficient. In practice, it is apt to become a rat race. That is why, for the past fifteen years, one of the two powers on which the distribution of industry policy has been made effective is the power to grant or refuse an industrial development certificate. The other weapon is the power to offer inducements to an industrialist to go to one of the areas which need more industry.
Therefore, the questions which are bound to be put, and which have been


put by the right hon. Member for Battersea, North, are, first, whether the Board of Trade is exercising its power to grant industrial development certificates too leniently, as those who represent areas of high unemployment are apt to claim, or too stringently, as is asserted by those representing areas where labour is scarce; and secondly, whether the inducements offered are adequate and, even if they are adequate, whether special inducements should be given to areas which are said to have unique problems.
I take, first, the question of industrial development certificates. We have a duty under Section 17 of the Local Employment Act, in considering industrial development certificates, to have particular regard to the need for providing appropriate employment in development districts. In every case, we must, and do, first see whether the development in question could be steered to a development district. When I receive deputations from districts of high unemployment or visit such areas, I am told that the Board of Trade is granting far too many industrial development certificates to London and to the Midlands. In fact, for new ventures, hardly any industrial development certificates have been granted them in recent years.
It would be quite unreasonable, however, to prevent all development in those areas. For one thing, many applications are for extensions or new premises to replace old buildings by firms who are tied to their areas, such as, for example, industries which exploit local materials, extractive industries such as coal or gravel, or service industries, including bakeries, cold storage depots, and printers. For another reason, some applications for building development involve no extra labour or may result in a more efficient use of labour.
In any event, it is a strange way of promoting efficiency and progress in the economy as a whole to deny firms the opportunity to provide better premises and better working conditions. We could not say that any firm wishing to do so must migrate to a development district. If we did, we would get few applications for providing better premises and better working conditions.
The point I am trying to make is that we must keep a balance in this matter.

Industrial development certificates ought not to be refused lightly. We need industrial expansion coupled with greater efficiency. It would be foolish to prevent a firm from developing in a certain place if, on balance, the economy would be worse off as a consequence. It is the balance of advantage that we must try to assess and it is often difficult to do so.
Every time that a firm which is already established in a congested area comes to us with proposals for the expansion of its premises, we are faced with a dilemma. If we approve the expansion, we add to the demand for labour where it is scarce. That means either that other employers in the area will lose labour through the new project, or that labour will be attracted from other areas and increase the pressure on housing, transport and other services of the congested area. If we do not approve the expansion, we may lose valuable production, possibly for export.
What we have to do, therefore, is to consider whether it is possible for the development to be carried out elsewhere, if not in a development district, at least in an area where labour is not too scarce. If we refuse to grant the certificate, the firm has either to move elsewhere or abandon the development, as in some cases happens. Therefore, in considering the grant or refusal of industrial development certificates, it is not easy to see where the balance of advantage lies.
In operating such a policy as this, nobody can always he right. Our success is, however, reflected in the comparative rates of growth of employment in manufacturing industry in different parts of the country. In the two years since the Local Employment Act came into force, additional jobs arising from the grant of industrial development certificates in Wales represented an increase of 6 per cent. in the numbers employed in manufacturing industry. That area was at the top of the table. It was followed by 5·2 per cent. in the Eastern Region, 4·7 per cent. in the Southern Region, 4·5 per cent. in the Northern Region, 4·4 per cent. in the South-Western and 3·4 per cent. in Scotland. At the other end of the list is London and the South-East——

Mr. Percy Collick: What was the figure for the North-West?

Mr. Macpherson: I gave the figure for the Northern Region, which covers it, of 4·,5 per cent.
At the other end of the list is London and the South-East Region with 1·4 per cent., the East and West Ridings with 1·2 per cent., and the Midland Region with 1·1 per cent.
These figures need interpretation. The figures are high in the Eastern, Southern and South-Western Regions because places there included in the development lists under the Act tend to attract development more readily than remoter areas. In consequence, most of them have been taken off the list or have been put on the stop list. The same applies to South Wales. The new towns, of course, benefit from factories in clearance areas —factories that have been cleared out of London—with special ties to the South. They do not get industries which could go to development districts. If that has not always been the case, it is so now.
The result is that 11 localities have been removed from the list since April, 1960, and there are at present 17 on the stop list. On the other hand, 10 have been added to the list. When the Act came into force, development districts contained 12·8 per cent. of the total insured population of Great Britain. These were areas of persistent high unemployment. Last week, active development districts—those not on the stop list—contained 7·5 per cent. of the insured population. By any standard,That represents very considerable progress.
In 1960–61, London and the South-East Region, with 21·2 per cent. of the insured employees in manufacturing industry, got 9·9 per cent. of the total estimated additional employment arising from the issue of certificates. Scotland, with 8·6 per cent. of the insured employees in manufacturing industry, got 12·1 per cent, of the estimated additional employment, and the corresponding figures for the Northern Region were 5·1 per cent. and 7·2 per cent.
Before turning from the issue of certificates, I want to reply, to some extent, to what the right hon. Gentleman said about office accommodation.

He suggested that it should be controlled in much the same way as industrial premises are controlled, at least in London. I have considerable sympathy with the desire to do something to ease the traffic congestion in London, or at least to prevent it from getting worse, while, at the same time, bringing employment for office workers to areas where there is not enough of it. But I do not think that it is helpful to take the number of new office workers in a year, add together the figures for three or four years, and then say that this is equivalent to the whole of the unemployment of Scotland.
Assistance under the Local Employment Act can, of course, be given to anyone prepared to provide employment in offices no less than in factories. Indeed, the Board of Trade is actually building an eight-storey office block for Rolls-Royce at Hillington, Glasgow. The building will be 77,000 sq. ft. What is lacking is the negative power to refuse authority for office development in areas such as London. Nor would it be possible to prevent an applicant who was refused authority to build an office in London from building within 30 miles of Piccadilly, unless certificates for office building had to be obtained not only in London and other congested areas but throughout the country.

Mr. Jay: That is what we suggest.

Mr. Macpherson: That is not what I understood the right hon. Gentleman to put forward. I understood him to suggest particular control for London. If he is suggesting control for the whole country, then what I am about to say will show him how difficult that would be to operate.

Mr. Jay: The industrial certificate system applies to the whole country, but in under-employed areas they are readily granted. As I see it, the same would be true of offices.

Mr. Macpherson: It is easy enough to ask for control analogous with industrial development certificates. The right hon. Gentleman moved an Amendment to impose such control during the passage of the Local Employment Act, and that Amendment was negatived. He did not carry it to a Division.

Mr. Jay: It was steam-rollered.

Mr. Macpherson: It was not steamrollered. It was not divided on.
Offices are very different from industry. We have to consider whether such a power would really be practicable. There are no criteria to judge whether it is essential that a particular office should be located in London. How could the Board of Trade decide whether a Midlands manufacturer needed a London office for his exports sales, or whether a firm of accountants needed another 10,000 sq. ft. of office space? Offices in London are generally put up speculatively. They are often planned and completed before it is known who is to occupy them. It would be difficult enough to say who should have a new office in London. It would be impossible to control change of occupancy. One of the loopholes in the control of industrial development is that we have no control over the disposal of an empty factory. Offices change hands far more frequently than factories. There are far more of them and far fewer are purpose built. The fact is that control of office building is essentially a matter of local planning, for which responsibility rests with the local authorities. The right hon. Gentlement invited me to give answers about points which are really for the Ministry of Housing and Local Government. These are matters for the local authorities and that Ministry.

Mr. James Griffiths: Do not the figures available to the Board of Trade and the Ministry of Labour show that in this country, as in most industrial countries, the proportion of total population employed in manufacturing industry is declining while the proportion engaged in services, including offices, is increasing all the time? If, therefore, we neglect offices, then the purpose of the distribution of industry policy, whatever the means adopted, will be nullified. If serious consideration is not given to this problem we shall not solve it.

Mr. Macpherson: Serious consideration is given to it, but the industrial development certificate procedure is not applicable to offices. But that is not to say that the Government have not done what they can, both by advice and example.

Mr. Jay: I invite the hon. Gentleman to think seriously about this problem and not just turn it down with a few rather hackneyed arguments.

Mr. Macpherson: This question, like other problems, has not escaped the notice of the Government. They are studying it. But it is not possible to control office building by the same method, at any rate, as we control industrial building. That is certainly not to say that the Government are not doing, both by advice and example, what they can to encourage firms to establish outside London their main offices, as opposed to their head offices, which may have to be in London.
There is, for instance, the example of the Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance offices at Newcastle, and the projected Past Office Savings Bank offices at Durham, the site of which I saw the other day. I have heard firms which have acted upon the Government's advice saying that they have found their employees healthier, happier and much more efficient away from the strain of London both on their nerves and on their purses. Again, the firms do not have to pay nearly so much for premises outside as in London.
On the other hand, the demand for offices in London reflects this City's importance as a financial and commercial center—an importance which may well increase if we go into the Common Market. I do not believe that to use a blunt instrument to keep out of London everyone who wants to set up an office here, whether essential or not, would really be in the national interest.
I now turn to the inducements. Are they adequate and proving successful? First, let me say this. People in different areas are apt to think that their case is unique and that they should have special treatment in the way of lower interest rates, more generous terms, bigger grants, and so an. In particular, such claims have been made for Scot land and for the North-East of England. I have also heard them made for other parts of the country. Representations have been made that the benefits of the Act should extend to a whole territory—to use a neutral word—for example, to Scotland as a country or to the North-East as a region.
But within these areas there are localities which are not in need of assistance. It is not necessarily true that development in one part benefits the whole area. The Local Employment Act is based on the conception of helping those localities which are in need of assistance, because in them there is, or there is expected to be, a high rate of unemployment which is likely to persist. Undoubtedly, if the same treatment were to be given to the whole territory some at least of the new ventures which would otherwise have gone to localities of high unemployment would go to places such as Edinburgh and Perth. While both the areas of the North East and of Scotland are suffering from closure of factories and pits and uncertainty with regard to the future of shipbuilding and the railways, and while both are severely affected by migration, the brute fact is that at any given moment there is only a certain amount of industry—not a constant amount—on the move.
It surely must be right to give all the localities where there is high and persistent unemployment, or the prospect of it, an equal chance of getting such industry as is on the move. Admittedly, the chances cannot be entirely equal. The needs and attractions of the localities vary, and it is no use saddling a place with an unsuitable industry, even if the industry were willing to go there. Secondly, it has been suggested that we should concentrate our assistance on growth points. As the Committee is aware, the Government are examining the recommendations of the Toothill Committee with regard both to Scotland and to its wider implications for the rest of the country. At present, I would only say that if assistance of this kind were to be concentrated on growth points, it would have to be accepted that many of the remoter places would not get industry at all and that people living in them would have to travel considerable distances to work or to move to the growth point.
Thirdly, it is suggested that the full benefits of the Local Employment Act should be made available to overspill receiving areas in the same way as the development districts, whether or not the over-spill receiving areas are in development districts. It is a proposal made particularly for Scotland and it is also

being studied. Again, my only comment at present is that it would be likely to result in the diversion of some industrial developments away from localities of high unemployment.
It was suggested that even if the inducements were adequate in 1960 they would not be adequate in the present situation, changed as it is by the more rapid closure of coal mines and the altered outlook in shipbuilding and the railways. That argument is quite fallacious. The 1960 Act was not passed to deal with the situation in 1959 or 1960. It was designed to deal with the inevitable ups and downs of economic life, including the rise and decline of industries, and to deal with just the kind of situation facing us now in some parts of the Kingdom. Where there is a prospect of higher unemployment through closure of pits in a particular locality, we are able to list it as a development district and make it eligible for the benefits of the Act. Indeed, we have done so recently with Seaton Delaval and Wingate in the North-East, and the Kirkcaldy-Glenrothes area, Lesmahagow and Cumnock in Scotland. Only today we have restored Llanelly to the development district list. We have also considered Bathgate where unemployment is persisting at a somewhat higher rate than at one time was thought likely. We have the shale mines there which are closing down and a coal mine there has already closed. On the other hand, the build up of labour by B.M.C. has been somewhat slower than expected and more of the workers have been drawn from outside the district. In all the circumstances, my right hon. Friend has decided to resume acceptance of applications for assistance in the Bath-gate and the adjoining Calders area of Midlothian.

Mr. Collick: Can the hon. Gentleman tell me what is the situation on Merseyside? Is it possible that the Minister w ill restore Merseyside to the list? We have now 4·5 per cent. unemployment, which is three times the national average, aggregating over 27,000 workers?

Mr. Macpherson: As against that there is a very great number of jobs in prospect in the area. We have to balance that in taking into account the prospective unemployment in the area. We have


to consider whether existing unemployment is likely to persist in the light of the jobs in prospect. That is why Merseyside, as having benefited very considerably, is at present on the stop list.
On the more general issue of the adequacy of assistance offered, it is at least doubtful whether high grants or lower interest rates would have resulted in more industrial development areas of high unemployment. In general, firms go to such areas either because they themselves find that they cannot get labour where they are or because they are refused industrial development certificates to expand where they are. Admittedly, some firms may be influenced by the higher inducements offered in Northern Ireland and Eire. It has to be remembered that the rate of wholly unemployed in Scotland and the North-East of England is 3·3 per cent. and 3·4 per cent. respectively, while in Northern Ireland it is 74 per cent.
The right hon. Gentleman raised the question of advance factories. On that point the Board of Trade has power, of course, to erect such factories and it has exercised its power cautiously. If we were to pepper the country with advance factories all at the same time it is very likely that many of them would stand vacant. What we have done is on two occasions to build one advance factory in each of the three countries—in England at Speke and South Shields, in Wales at Holyhead and Pembroke Dock and in Scotland at Coatbridge and Shotts. Unfortunately, there was some delay in acquiring a suitable site for the factory at Shotts, but it is now going ahead.
We have also converted an old Admiralty establishment at Carfin and six buildings there have been adapted for industry and have been let. Recently the Board of Trade acquired from the Admiralty some land and buildings at the old R.N.A.S. station at Donibristle. We have decided to convert the big engineering shop there into a factory for industrial use in advance of getting a tenant at an estimated expenditure of about £100,000. While it would be wrong to use the powers to build advance factories indiscriminately, I can tell the Committee that the Government are considering their future policy as

regards advance factories in the light of experience gained so far and of current and prospective conditions.

Mr. Jay: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether any are being built now and whether the ones previously built under the Act have been successfully let?

Mr. Macpherson: Four of the six factories in the two groups were successfully let. One is likely to be let in the near future and one is just starting to be built. Of the Carfin factories—there were seven of them—six have been converted and adapted for industrial use and have been let. At the moment, the only one that we have in mind, apart from that at Shotts, is the conversion of the factory at Donibristle. At the moment we are considering the policy for the future.
It is the results that really matter. In the first two years of the working of the Act, the total assistance offered by way of finance and the provision of Board of Trade factories, taken together, excluding offers which were declined, was £69 million for 300 projects to provide 70,300 jobs. This is a very considerable figure. The percentage of expenditure was 29 per cent. in England, 11 per cent. in Wales and 60 per cent. in Scotland. Of this total, some £25 million has been spent or committed on Board of Trade factories, ranging from the 450,000 square feet factory for Fisher and Ludlow at Kirkby down to the Southford Ltd. engineering venture at Bargoed.
In addition to all the concerns setting up or expanding in Board of Trade factories, there are many others building their own factories, some with Board of Trade financial assistance, others by raising the finance themselves. In the North East of England, for example, companies like Hepworth and Grandage, and James A. Jobling and Co, both at Sunderland, Airscrew-Weyroc Ltd. at Hexham, and Tube Investments Ltd. at Washington are transforming the districts in which they are establishing themselves or expanding.
In Wales, the establishment of factories such as that of Ferodo, at Caernarvon, provides another heartening example of co-operation between industry and the Government and a great improvement in employment prospects.


In Scotland, companies such as Skefco Ball bearings at Irvine, Standard Telephone and Cables Ltd., and Rheostatic Ltd., at East Kilbride, and Ferranti, with a new factory at Dalkeith, are all making very great contributions towards providing new jobs for workers in or from areas where unemployment is high.
The financial assistance which the Board of Trade has offered over the first two years of the Act has helped companies of all sizes and of very varied interests to establish themselves or to expand and to provide jobs for workers in the development districts. Excluding offers which have not been accepted, purely financial assistance of £43·8 million has been offered—£13·3 million in England, £2·7 million in Wales, and £27·8 million in Scotland. The Board of Trade has offered assistance to all kinds of projects, of a great variety and of different sorts. I have a note here of bakers and boatbuilders, canners and cabinet makers, distillers and die-casters, hoteliers and hackle-makers. That is an illustration of the great variety of assistance given.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: What percentage of that total has been accounted for by Section 7 help, that is, the provision of basic services such as transport and electricity?

Mr. Macpherson: That would be accounted for largely through the Votes of Departments other than the Board of Trade. Assistance has gone to large companies in industrial centres providing employment for thousands of workers and also to small firms providing a few much needed jabs in remote areas. They all have this in common. that, under the terms of the Act, they must be likely to be able to carry on successfully without further assistance from the Board of Trade and thus provide continuing employment.
These successes are real and substantial. They have been achieved by the combination of a tough but realistic I.D.C. policy on the one hand—I assure the right hon. Member for Battersea, North that it is a tough policy and that if he had the task of listening to deputations from people whose I.D.C.s are refused, as I have, he would realise that is so—and on the other hand of persuasion

and of providing information about the amenities of the development districts; of substantial Government aid and of the co-operation of industrialists and entrepreneurs on the success of whose ventures everything depends.
Naturally—and there has been some misunderstanding about this—not all the jobs have matured. After all, the Act has been working for only two years and two months. Some firms may not reach their estimates, but others may exceed them. All these are developments which are going forward in localities of high unemployment. Perhaps some would have gone ahead without assistance and some do, but the majority would certainly not have done so either on the same scale or at the same pace, if they had gone ahead at all.
As new threats to employment arise, the localities affected are added to the development district list. To be on the list is no guarantee that industrialists will decide to set up or expand in that locality, but at least those whose jobs are threatened can take courage from the fact that in two years 129 projects in England, 45 in Wales and 126 in Scotland have accepted offers of assistance under this enlightened piece of legislation.
I hope that no hon. Member will grudge the cost—most of it, in any case, will come back to the Exchequer—when he reflects that more than 70,000 new jobs have been created in areas which badly need them, 47 per cent. in England, 41 per cent. in Scotland and 12 per cent. in Wales.

Mr. Harry Randall: The hon. Gentleman refers to 70,000 new jobs, but is it not a fact that reference to the employment register shows only about 50 per cent. of that number?

Mr. Macpherson: The firms are only starting now and have, naturally, to work up to their peak. They apply for an industrial development certificate and state the number of jobs which they expect to provide when the building is completed without needing further extensions. That is the criterion on which one works. The firms could not have worked up to their peak within two years and two months. Some might never work up to that peak, while others


may expand beyond the existing I.D.C. and employ many more than they originally estimated.
I am not claiming that our present policy is so perfect that it cannot be improved in any circumstances. What I can claim is that it is a great improvement on what has gone before and that the Government are always prepared to consider further improvements and will consider those which the right hon. Gentleman has suggested today. I am also claiming that it has been and is being remarkably effective. It is designed to be fair to all parts of the country and to give help where help is needed. It is operated in the national interest in such a way as to be as fair as possible both to industry and to areas which need industry. The Government cannot please all industrialists or all areas, but at least they endeavour, with considerable success, to operate this policy sensibly and sympathetically.
Great credit is due to the Board of Trade Advisory Committee, which is entirely composed of business and professional men and one trade unionist, and which has handled 500 cases in the last two years and recommended assistance in more than 200 of them. I take this opportunity of publicly thanking the Committee for giving so much of its time as well as the benefit of its individual experience and its collective wisdom. The policy and the way in which it has worked merit the support of the House of Commons and the country because it has shown and is showing substantial results.

5.7 p.m.

Mr. A. Woodburn: I am sure that the Minister was very satisfied with the seemingly impressive figures which he reeled off. No one will deny that many of the things about which he told us have done some good, but although the figures seem impressive we are dealing with a population of 50 million in Britain, 5 million in Scotland alone. One essential figure which he did not mention was the number of jobs disappearing. Has he replaced the jobs disappearing in Scotland and the North-East coast, because if that is not done, the wastage will increase?
But the figures mean nothing unless they are related to human facts. The

depressing figures were not those which the hon. Gentleman gave. What is depressing is that jobs are disappearing and none are coming in to replace them. Every hon. Member on this side of the Committee was gratified to see the arrival of my hon. Friend the Member for West Lothian (Mr. Dalyell). His election is a victory for this side of the Committee, but there is something about the West Lothian result which is even more impressive than that victory. It is the fact that nine out of every ten votes were cast against the Government, not necessarily because the voters did not like the Tories—many of them would have voted Tory in past elections—but as an indication of their indignation at Scotland's raw deal. We can reel off all the statistics we like, but in Scotland the shipbuilding industry is disappearing, the coal industry is disappearing and the railways are being closed down because those industries are disappearing, and now the steel industry is shrinking. Much of the basic industry on which the population of Scotland has lived for generations is shrinking and withering away.
The Minister has said that there has been a shrinkage and wastage of population in Scotland for the last ten years. He is greatly under-estimating the position. This movement has gone on for the last hundred years. People are disappearing from the islands to the mainland, and from the Highlands to the towns. From the towns of Scotland they are disappearing to the Midlands of England and to London in order to find profitable employment.
The Minister has sought to narrow the debate to questions affecting the Board of Trade, but this is not a debate about the Board of Trade; it is about the location of industry; about where the populations of this country will live, and whether they will be able to get work where they live. It is a question which goes far beyond the Board of Trade. The hon. Member has told us about his limited powers of controlling the development of offices. But the Government control town and country planning. Why should they allow offices to be built in the centre of London if there is no justification for them? The Government will have to spend hundreds of millions of pounds in trying to solve London's transport problem—a problem which


they are aggravating. Part of that money could be used to send industry to other parts of the country. In this way, in due time, a good deal of expenditure would be avoided.
Towns in the north of England and in Scotland, on which £300 million or £400 million have been spent, may wither away, and the capital may be lost, merely because the Government think that they cannot guide or direct anybody to a particular spot. The idea of a free choice on the part of industry is nonsense. American firms have come to Scotland, as have Italians. Industries from England have come to Scotland, and from all these we have had reports that Scottish labour is splendid. On the aircraft on which I was travelling this morning a man told me that Scotland can produce goods with an efficiency which cannot be matched by the South. But because directors wish to live in or near London, industries must go there.
That is nonsense. Public capital was used to build the Great West Road and other arteries of transport, and industries have no right to receive public capital unless they are carrying out a public purpose. They should be located according to public requirements. Other countries can do this. Even Fascist Spain can establish industries where they are needed. This Government are starting to do it about twelve years after coming into office, not having foreseen the problems that would arise.
Why must we wait until there is high unemployment in an area? That is the situation that has developed in Scotland. The Government should foresee what is happening. It is an old Tory idea that children should be given food only when they show signs of malnutrition. After the harm has been done and the children are starving we start giving them food. This is nonsense. We cannot have healthy children unless we feed them when they require food, and we cannot have healthy industry unless we send it to areas where people are available. In areas of high unemployment the skilled men have already disappeared to the Midlands and to London, and only the unskilled workers are left.
This is not an academic question; it concerns the lives of men. All the figures that have been given have no effect on

people who fear that they will be unemployed next year, or even next week. The houses that they have spent money in purchasing may become liabilities instead of assets. People must be able to live where they want, and if we are not willing to direct industry we have no right to direct people. If we starve them in one area and force them out into the Midlands or into the South we are directing them just as much as any direction of industry which the Board of Trade carries out.
I know that many hon. Members want to speak, and I shall be brief. I can assure all hon. Members that Scotland feels that she is having a raw deal, and that her lifeblood is being allowed to drain away. The figures that have been given may sound impressive, but something more must be done if the confidence of the Scottish people is to be restored and they are to be made to feel that they will be allowed to carry on their lives in the way they want.
The argument always arises whether we ought to interfere with private enterprise. I do not object to private enterprise; I realise that at the moment there is no other machinery through which we can work. Hon. Members opposite believe in private enterprise, and today it is on trial. In Scotland it is failing. It is not delivering the goods. There are great areas of Scotland where private enterprise cannot live. What is the Government's reply to this problem? They cannot force private enterprise to go there because it cannot live there, and it would be unreasonable to expect it to make sacrifices. As the Minister rightly said, we would have to compensate it for its losses.
But the Government can do something if they believe in private enterprise. The first thing they can do is to send some orders to the North-East and to Scotland, instead of sending them to Oxford and Birmingham and the outskirts of London. Orders were sent there during the war and very efficient industries were built up by the Ministry of Supply because of that fact. I know that the Board of Trade cannot do it, but when I was at the Ministry of Supply I did my darnedest, against tremendous resistance from all sorts of farces.
One of the secrets is not to worry about getting new people to the area.


Never mind about Americans or anyone else; if the orders are given indigenous industries will flourish and grow. Because Government orders were given, towns in the north-east of Scotland have developed flourishing industries. Arbroath now has a flourishing engineering industry. Once industry starts developing a living is provided for the railways and other forms of transport, and lower subsidies will be required from the Secretary of State in order to keep the area alive. People will begin to live again because the means of life are being sent to them.
The next step is to induce industry to go to these areas. The Minister says that we cannot give industry special favours, but the Government did so in Malta. Why should Scotland be treated less favourably than Malta? Governments can give freedom from Income Tax and special subsidies to industry going to Malta. Why should not that policy be adopted in regard to Scotland? Industries should be established there to the maximum extent. The Government have been too late, and their policy has been too narrow. This has caused a feeling of despair to sweep over Scotland. The Secretary of State has an overall responsibility for Scotland and the Government an overall responsibility for the whole country. The Government do not seem to have any policy. Every Ministry acts on its own. We should have a comprehensive policy, so that the Government can decide how the whole country should be developed.
If we go into the Common Market we shall have to make plans. The Common Market is sending industries to the south of Italy and other parts of Europe where it is required. As a result, Italians who were working in Belgium and Switzerland have flooded back to the land of sun, where they would rather work, if jobs are available, than in the mists of Belgium. Italy is now becoming prosperous. Wages are rising. They are even becoming customers for our Commonwealth produce. Must we wait until we enter the Common Market before we get on with planning? If so, Scotland will be enthusiastic about going into the Common Market. Planning cannot come too soon for her.
I say to the Government, "Do not wait until we go into the Common Market; get busy now. Send orders to

places where they are needed. Enable people to live where they want to live and help to spread industry over the country." It is about thirty years since a great report on the location of industry was published. It seems to have been put on the shelf and forgotten. It is time that the Government got down to this problem. We do not want industry to be concentrated in the Thames Valley and around Birmingham. We want it to be properly located and spread over the country. As we spread the population we shall lower costs.
The idea about the difficulty of transport is so much nonsense. Americans who come to Scotland laugh about this. A thousand miles transport in America is nothing to them. The idea that people boggle at 100 or 50 miles transport is nonsense. Let the Government get down to this question and consider it as a whole and, if necessary, appoint a Minister for the location of industry. I am sorry that the Minister of Labour has left the Front Bench. He and his Ministry know far more about this question than those in other Departments. They should be inspiring the Government to discover where the black spots may develop. Before a black time comes, industry should be sent to those spots. The Government should be prepared to see that industry is provided before a slump comes. Then confidence would be restored.
The hon. Member for Glasgow, Pollock (Mr. George)—who, I regret to say, has had to give up his post as Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Power—said the other day that he had no objection at all to uneconomic pits closing, and that it was right that they should, but before they were closed there should be compensating industry in the area concerned so that there would not be unemployment. That, in a nutshell, is what we suggest the Government should do. We hope that they will get down to the job.

5.22 p.m.

Mr. Paul Williams: I am very glad to be able to follow the right hon. Member for Clackmannan and East Stirlingshire (Mr. Woodburn). I want to take up what he said about putting industry on the spot. The right hon. Member did a rather strange thing. He praised Fascist Spain.


I am not sure whether he was praising Fascism, planning, or Fascist planning, or all of them, but it seemed strange coming from the other side of the Committee.

Mr. Woodburn: Good roads and good houses and such things are needed whether they are provided by Fascist dictators, Communists or anyone else. I want good planning and roads. There is no reason why a democracy should not provide them just as well as Fascists.

Mr. Williams: I agree with the right hon. Member. It shows that tolerance is needed.
He made great play about office development. That, I agree, is something which is difficult and if possible we should guide it into certain parts of the country. But again, as in industry, there is a danger of direction and dictatorship. It may be, as my hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary said, that in directing industry we could prevent suitable development. Encouragement and persuasion are more valuable.
It ill becomes the Opposition to criticise development of office building when hon. Members opposite, with hon. Members on this side of the Committee, are pressing for an Offices Bill to see that that development is improved. I should have thought that hon. Members opposite would be glad to see improvements in office development in Central London and would go further and express the hope that such developments should take place in other parts of the country as well.
Again referring to what my hon. Friend said, I think that we must maintain a reasonable degree of balance about this matter and see what in fact is passible. When we cast our minds back a very short time to pre-war years we find that figures of unemployment Which today we regard as intolerable would have been appreciated considerably in those years, especially in the North-East. That is not to say that everything is perfect—certainly not—but we have to get the matter into balance. Then we see that activity has taken place, partly during the war and since the war, under Governments of both parties. We must take a slightly more detached view of the matter.
Before making two individual points on a wider front, I wish to pay tribute to the activities of the Board of Trade in the North-East. We know that there are individual parts of the North-East where problems still continue, and will continue. As my hon. Friend said, the Act has been operating for only two years and two months. We are not at the crest of the wave yet, but we are seeing a great deal of steady build up in the supply of jobs.
I have sometimes criticised the phrases "jobs in prospect" and "jobs in the pipeline". Those are phrases Which I dislike intensely and I hope that the new junior Minister of Power will be able to rub out some of these phrases in Ministerial language. Human facts
emerge as a result of this Act. For example, Sunderland is off the classified list for the first time in twenty-five years. I am glad that Sunderland can now look the rest of the nation straight in the eye and say, "We don't need a subsidy. We don't need assistance. We stand on our own feet."
I know that some moan about the situation and say that it is still delicate. The problem of 5 per cent. unemployed is substantial and real but how much better it is when a town, an area or a region is able to stand on its own feet. I regard Government policy on major economic affairs as the key factor in a town which needs industry to be attracted to it. It is the Government's policy which is the key factor, and the rôle of the regional controller for the Board of Trade is important. I pay tribute to the Board of Trade and its regional controllers. Those I have met are intensely human and they understand our problems. They know how to guide industry in the most helpful way.
The two points which I want to put to the Board of Trade are concerned with estate management. The Industrial Estates Corporation owns and rents out factories. Is that the right long-term policy? I have my doubts about it. I think that there is a danger in a development district of the State being forever the landlord. An industry comes in and rents a factory and then if perchance it falls on hard times it withdraws back to its firm base in its home area and abandons the development district. That may be bad or good, but it is a fact


and the way in which human beings behave.
I should like the Board of Trade to adopt a policy of selling the factories in the industrial estates so that they could chain the new tenants to the area concerned. Someone who comes in and buys a factory is much more likely to sink lasting roots in the locality than if it rents a factory on the estate. I urge the Board of Trade to consider if it cannot be more positive in encouraging the managing corporation to sell factories and to take the initiative in selling. Then it could staple down the new tenants to the localities to which they move. I do not know what the policy of the management corporation is at the moment, whether it is positive or, as I suspect may be the case, naturally obstructive to selling factories.
Secondly, what about the possibility of selling whole trading estates to free enterprise corporations to operate profitably for the community, perhaps involving county councils and county borough councils in part of the financing? This seems to me a way of securing a much more local interest in trading estates than exists at the moment.
If the latter is not possible, may I return to the point about selling factories? One of the problems of the Board of Trade at the moment is finding the cash to build new factories. If it is not one of its problems then the Treasury is not doing its job. If it is one of its problems, here is a way of alleviating it by the sale of existing factories. The management corporations should gather in the receipts from that sale and go forward to provide further factories. This seems to me a way of internally providing finance for further development. No doubt there would be Treasury objections to that type of machinery but that kind of thing can be argued out internally. The first point, therefore, is to sell the factory so that the tenants have a more personal interest in the area and to use the cash from that sale for further development. Then the question of floating off individual estates as private undertakings might be a profitable line for the Board of Trade.

Mr. Collick: This is an extraordinarily interesting argument. It runs something like this—it became necessary for public money to be put up to start trad-

ing estates, because private enterprise for one reason or another was unable to do so, and now, having successfully established the estates, we are to sell them back to private enterprise. It seems a queer sort of business to me.

Mr. Williams: It is not a queer argument at all. It is a perfectly natural thing to do. This may appear to the hon. Member to be a doctrinaire point of view but I do not regard the State as being the right landlord for this sort of operation. The job of the State is to prime the pump and, having done so, to float off the machine and let it operate as best it can. It is the job of the State to fill the gaps in the present situation. It seems to me a way of helping the economy nationally and of getting industry to develop itself on the right lines.
There should be a limited degree of praise for the actions of the Board of Trade thus far. Whatever criticisms were made of it when it was passed, this Act appears to be working satisfactorily. There are areas where it is criticised for not having worked fast enough. It is criticised for having encouraged development in certain areas and not elsewhere, but on balance I should have thought that it was working with a reasonable degree of competence and satisfactorily for areas of high unemployment and that the Committee should approve generally of this policy.

5.33 p.m.

Mr. Jeremy Thorpe: I hope that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) will forgive me if I do not follow in great detail his line of argument. He referred to areas which have been typified as a West Lothian kind of constituency. I want to speak of problems typified by the Montgomeryshire kind of constituency and by the constituency which I represent. I represent a town which was scheduled for assistance under both the Distribution of Industry Act, 1958, and under the Local Employment Act, 1960. I should like to examine whether the latter Act has been effective in attracting industry to the area and whether the Government have any discernible policy in this respect, and to make one or two suggestions on how they could improve their efforts.
We have gone a long way since we had problems of chronic unemployment


to deal with which depressed areas were scheduled under the 1934 and 1937 Acts. I believe that the 1960 Act is wider and more flexible in its approach than were its predecessors, the Distribution of Industry Acts, 1945 and 1950. It is more flexible because the emphasis is no longer wholly on industrial employment and it recognises that two quite separate problems face any Government. There is the problem which relates to the declining industrial areas and there is the problem of non-industrial areas where no alternative employment is available. They are two quite different problems. I should like to touch upon the second one.
The first is a question of revitalising industrial areas where there are already basic services, where there is a pool of labour available and where there is already a market and a reasonable possibility that industrialists could be attracted because the basic ingredients are there. Then there are the non-industrial areas which I believe are the more intractable problem. These areas are largely the fringe areas of the country which depend to a large extent on agriculture and tourism. In these areas there is very little alternative employment and, in some cases, possibly only one industry or factory in a town. This in itself is an unhealthy state of affairs because if there is only one factory it needs only a recession in that particular industry for there to be widespread unemployment. If there is only one boss and a man has an argument with the boss, it is virtually impossible to find alternative employment. Every one agrees that it is preferable to have a variety of factories and industries not merely as alternative employment but because it is a healthier way of bringing about wage competition.
I make no apology for mentioning one town which is scheduled for assistance. It typifies many similar towns which hon. Members represent, including perhaps some hon. Members who would like to speak on this subject but who may not have the good fortune which I have had to be called to take part in the debate. This is the town of Ilfracombe which for four months of the year has unemployment which rises to approximately 10 per cent. of the working population and sometimes even higher. Our experience of the 1960 Act is that

we have had 12 inquiries, and four firms have applied for assistance under the Act. Every single one of them has been rejected. The same 100 per cent. rejection was experienced under the 1958 Act. These were firms from as far afield as Birmingham, Southend, Stroud, Worcester and Blackpool. The only benefit that we have derived is a grant under Section 5 of the Act for the purchase and clearing of an industrial site.
As I indicated in my maiden speech on 10th November, 1959, I do not believe that the problem in areas of this kind is one of subsidising individuals or individual firms. The problem is to open up the area by improving communications and by improving the basic services there. If these basic services are not improved, I do not believe that any amount of financial inducement will persuade firms to open up in these areas. This is why I ask the Parliamentary Secretary to the Board of Trade to say what assistance has been granted under Section 7 of the 1960 Act which empowers any Minister in charge of any Government Department to make adequate provision, if he thinks there is inadequate provision, for basic services such as roads, rail, air transport, light, heating and water.
We have now the fantastic situation that at a time when the Government, under the 1960 Act, are trying to attract firms to Ilfracombe the railway service from Taunton which leads to the town is under threat of closure. How can we expect to be able to attract industry through the medium of one Government Department when at the same time another Ministry is considering closing branch lines which lead to the area concerned? It is like giving a man a blood transfusion and cutting his arteries at the same time. There must be far more co-ordination. I hope that the President of the Board of Trade will let us know what assistance has been given by any of the Ministries under Section 7 of the Act for the provision of basic services.
The President of the Board of Trade must realise that it will be the smaller firms which will open up in these areas. Having studied the operation of the Act, I believe that the smaller a firm is the more difficult it finds it to obtain assistance under the Act. The President of


the Board of Trade must be very much more flexible in his approach, realising that in these areas not only manufacturing concerns but industries ancillary to tourism, fishing, intensive agriculture and the like can be a means of providing alternative employment.
Applications must be dealt with by the Board of Trade more quickly. I have spoken to every industrialist in my constituency who has applied for assistance under the Act. We are spending public money and the public, therefore, has the right to be satisfied that the money is wisely spent—I concede that at once—but the industrialists to whom I have spoken complain, first, about the complexity of the application and, second, about the time it takes for the Board of Trade to reach a decision. We must streamline the method of dealing with applications so that, from the moment of application, no more than three months, or four months at the very outside, are allowed to pass before a decision is reached. I have known cases where there has been more than a year's delay and the firm has lost interest and gone elsewhere.
The fringe areas of which I am speaking not only have large-scale unemployment in proportion to their total population but, much more serious, there is large-scale rural depopulation. In Montgomeryshire and in my constituency one can find villages with populations smaller than they were 100 years ago. As the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said, this process is adding to congestion in the towns to traffic problems and the problems with which the Minister of Housing and Local Government is trying to deal. They are problems in the solution of which the Board of Trade could do very much more.
We are entitled to have a little more information about the industrial development certificate system. I wish to refer to an instance which occurred very near my own constituency, though not within it. In judging the working of the industrial development certificate system, obviously one is only able to draw upon one's own experience and make comparisons. The case in question arose in Tiverton, and I told the hon. Member for Tiverton (Mr. Maxwell-Hyslop) that I intended to raise the matter. I am delighted to know that any town is to

have a new industry providing alternative employment, but I am sure that the hon. Gentleman will agree, as I should agree, that we must, in arranging these matters, have regard to a system of priorities and we must put industry first in places where there is a high level of unemployment.
In Tiverton there is one main industrial employer, John Heathcoat and Company, a textile manufacturing company well known throughout the West Country. Lord Amory was, until his appointment as High Commissioner in Canada, one of the directors. It is a well-known firm with a long industrial tradition in the West Country, and it is the main employer of labour in Tiverton. There is in Tiverton virtually full employment. The figures for June showed that there were about 90 people not employed there but, according to the Ministry of Labour's statistics, they are in the main either old people or people not suitable for industrial employment.
In 1961, the sale of a site to the Charles Churchill Machine Tool Company of Birmingham was contemplated. In October, 1961, or perhaps before that date—these things take a little time,—the Churchill Company
applied for an industrial development certificate and was refused. It is quite understandable that the President of the Board of Trade and his advisers may well have thought that, in a town which had, comparatively speaking, a high level of employment, a case could not be made out for such expansion. I do not think that anyone would have been surprised by that decision. The Churchill company made inquiries also in my constituency to see whether there were possibilities for expansion there. It has now set itself up in the Isle of Wight.
We do not know what opposition there was in Tiverton itself. At a dinner in May, 1961, the deputy-chairman of the Heathcoat Company, so he was reported, said that if there was to be expansion in Tiverton obviously the established firms must have a prior claim on available labour. That is a perfectly reasonable claim but a claim which might lead one to believe, to put it at its lowest, that he would not be over-enthusiastic at having a competitor on Tiverton's labour market. Be that as it may, the Churchill application was turned down.
In January, 1962, it was reported that an application had been received from a company which wished to purchase six acres of an industrial site in Tiverton. In April, 1962, the sale was confirmed. The directors were not named. The products which they would manufacture were not mentioned, and the name of the company itself was not given. It was indicated that the company was American, that it was 50 per cent. owned by Heathcoats, and that there would be advantages in combination and co-operation between experts in the two companies. A deputation led by some very distinguished people from the County of Devon, one of them the chairman of the county council, went to the Board of Trade. Five months or so after an I.D.C. had been refused to Churchills an I.D.C. was granted to this other company.
There are many people in the West Country who feel that this is, perhaps, according a high priority to the convenience of a local firm rather than interpreting in a regional or national sense the policy behind the Local Employment Act. There are many who question the wisdom of this particular move.
Perhaps the hon. Member for Tiverton is hoping to catch the eye of the Chair so that he may refer to this matter later. I mention it because it seems strange that in one county there should he a town which is scheduled for special assistance but which has had no success so far while in another a decision is taken which, in effect, completely reverses an earlier decision taken only five months before. Much of Ilfracombe's lack of success is, perhaps, attributable to a lack of basic services, such as communications, although the town itself has made great efforts in acquiring an industrial site and industrialists with whom I have spoken have expressed themselves as very grateful for the spirit of co-operation shown to them by the chamber of commerce, the town council and the trade unions.
Contrary decisions, such as the Tiverton case, taken in this way lead one to ask for a little more information about how the I.D.C. system works and about this particular case. I hope that the President of the Board

of Trade will give us this information when he replies.
It may be said that for a firm to expand and to share experts in the way suggested is valuable as a matter of convenience, but this has not been regarded in the past as a sufficient or overriding consideration. We know of the steel strip mills, for instance, which were split up, different parts of the enterprise being allocated to different parts of the country. Various car manufacturers which have wanted to expand in the places of their first choice have had to go elsewhere. I want the right hon. Gentleman to explain a little more the operation of the system, particularly since the Parliamentary Secretary has said that he has to be a hard man turning down application after application when deputations come to him.
The non-industrial and rural areas have and are continuing to suffer from depopulation. They have little alternative employment and present a totally different problem from the declining industrial areas. The provision of basic services like water, drainage, electricity, better roads and improved communications by rail is more important to the future of these areas than the subsidising of firms which might wish to set up in them.

5.50 p.m.

Mr. Rupert Speir: Unfortunately, this is a short debate and since a number of hon. Members wish to speak, I hope that the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) will forgive me if I do not follow him in his remarks.
It may surprise the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) to hear that I speak as a great supporter of the Local Employment Act. I congratulate the Government on having introduced it and I thank the Board of Trade for the helpful way in which it has been operated in my part of the country. I say "surprise" in view of the song and dance which the right hon. Member for Battersea, North usually makes about the location of industry. It was a Conservative Government and not he and his right hon. and hon. Friends who introduced the Local Employment Act. That Measure has brought great advantages which none of the previous Acts contained. None of the previous Measures allowed the Government to anticipate


trouble in threatened areas. They could only deal with the trouble once it had arisen and I am astonished that he and his right hon. and hon. Friends, when they were in power, did not introduce amending legislation to make such anticipation possible.

Mr. Jay: That is quite untrue, because the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, empowered the Government to take account of the balance of distribution of industry and, in doing that, were able to consider the future as well as the present.

Mr. Speir: When I wrote to the Board of Trade I used to be told time and again that the existing legislation precluded the Department from taking into account threatened as opposed to actual unemployment areas. It is, therefore, somewhat amazing to think that it was left to a Conservative Government to introduce the necessary amending legislation. Time and again the right hon. Member for Battersea, North and his hon. Friends say that we Conservatives believe in a free-for-all and laissez-faire policy. I suggest that they address those remarks to the small number of hon. Members who sit, now and again, on the Liberal benches. The Local Employment Act gives the lie to that suggestion. Instead of the workers having to uproot themselves and their families and drift South—to the Midlands, London and the new towns—the Act has enabled the Government to look ahead and to take action in time.
I have no doubt that the new towns are extremely attractive. After all, we are spending about £400 million adding to those attractions. However, is it not time that we reconsidered this policy? The older towns, if they were allowed to spend £400 million, could make themselves attractive to industrialists who would wish to establish businesses in these areas. The older towns have all the traditions, as well as the churches, the clubs, the "pubs", the cinemas, the sewers—in fact they have the lot—and if they had a little more money to make themselves more attractive new industries would be attracted to them.
The Local Employment Act has worked extremely well in the short time it has been in operation. Already, it has very largely cured the unemployment problem in South Wales and it is

doing the same on Merseyside. It is certainly helping to cure the problems of the north-east of England. In the Hexham division we have had two "designated" areas under that Act. They were depressed areas in pre-war days, and more recently, with the closures of mines and quarries, they could have become depressed areas once again. But the Government took action and as a result of the introduction of the Local Employment Act we have been able to do something which I do not believe we could have done under the old Socialist legislation—we have been able to look ahead.
The Board of Trade has been extremely helpful and has encouraged one industry after another to come to the Hexham area and to south-west Northumberland, where they have been welcomed with open arms by the local authorities and the local people. New ventures, industries and factories, have been, and are being, established in large numbers in south-west Narthumberland, and instead of being faced with the horrors of unemployment I am receiving letters from industrialists saying that they would like to expand but that there is a scarcity of labour in the area.
I admit that the situation in southwest Northumberland is, better, for one reason or another, than in other parts of the north-east of England. Perhaps the district has deserved its luck, for there is a true saying that the Almighty helps those who help themselves.
In any case, the situation in the North-East is not helped by those who paint an over-gloomy picture of the difficulties and who exaggerate the problems of the area. It is very encouraging to know that industrialists who have recently gone to this part of the country cannot speak too highly of the quality of the workers there. They are delighted with their work and are agreeably surprised with the labour relations that exist. One prominent industrialist, a newcomer to the North-East, told me recently, "You can reason with them in this area." Many others have spoken in a similar vein.
It is that kind of remark, that sort of reputation, which will help to solve the difficulties of the North-East and which will make the area more attractive to industrialists. That sort of reputation


is probably more important than any amount of financial assistance or support from the Government. The North-East is establishing the reputation of being a sensible, reasonable and trouble-free area and I hope that all hon. Members who represent parts of the North-East, and who speak in today's debate, will do all they can to safeguard and enhance this reputation.

5.58 p.m.

Mr. Charles Grey: I entirely agree with the sentiments expressed in the latter part of the speech of the hon. Member for Hexham (Mr. Speir). Few, if any, hon. Members would disagree that the North-East, as an area, has to be projected properly. But I object to the first part of his speech. The hon. Member might even regret that he changed his mind and decided to fight the Hexham seat because, if he continues to make any more speeches containing the views expressed in the earlier part of his speech today, he has lost Hexham already.
I shall deal with the Local Employment Act later. The fact that we are having this debate proves conclusively that the distribution of industry policy of this Government has completely failed. When the Act was passed it was intended that industry would be spread more evenly throughout the country. That was the intention and it is well known how well this policy worked under the Labour Government immediately after the war. At that time a real attempt was made to send industry away from the South to the North-East, Scotland and elsewhere. It is only after eleven years of Tory rule that the problem has again arisen and the Act has ceased to operate as it should.

Mr. Speir: Which Act?

Mr. Grey: The Distribution of Industry Act. I said that I would deal with the Local Employment Act later. I intended to say that the distribution of industry policy being operated now is more unfairly balanced than at any time, compared even with pre-war days. I have no doubt that there have been one or two puny efforts made by the Government to put the situation right. One effort was the Local Employment Act,

1960, which the hon. Member for Hexham tries to claim is a huge success.

Mr. Speir: Where are the Welsh Members today?

Mr. Grey: Perhaps the hon. Member will allow me to make my speech without interruption, since I allowed him to do so.
Hon. Members opposite support the Government Front Bench in claiming that the Local Employment Act is a huge success.

Mr. Speir: Hear, hear.

Mr. Grey: If the Government and back bench Members opposite think that, I can show that there are thousands of people who think differently. At the moment, there are 45,000 people on the dole in the Northern Region. Will any one of them say that the Local Employment Act is a huge success?
We all remember the great hullabaloo that there was when it was decided to introduce this Measure. It was said that it would be the instrument which would search for and dig out pockets of unemployment. That was the intention. The Act was to be some magic box from which employment would flow to the development districts. But, like many other Acts of the Government and like many other boxes of the Government, it has a Treasury lock. The only man who could open that box today, Houdini, died years ago. No one can open that box today.
I repeat that the Local Employment Act is a "phoney" piece of legislation. As for the benefit which it is said the North-East has obtained from it, we would have been no worse off if it had not existed.

Mr. Speir: Nonsense.

Mr. Grey: That is true, and I will prove it.
I hope that when the Minister replies he will not try to prove how good the Local Employment Act has been in the North-East. It is deader than dead. The Parliamentary Secretary talked about the jobs in prospect. I believe he said that there were 35,000 jobs in prospect for England. Two or three weeks ago he was in Newcastle, where he said that there were over 22,000 jobs in prospect for the North-East. If there


are only 35,000 jobs in prospect for the country, there will not be many left for other areas.
Even if it were true that there are 22,000 jobs in prospect for the North-East—we know that there are not, but even supposing that it were true—that is no comfort at all. This is no huge success story because that figure only takes care of the appreciable number of children leaving school. It does not take account of the contraction in the mining, shipbuilding and ship-repairing industries. Neither does it take account of the latest redundancies on British Railways. All this will add up to a formidable figure.
At present, there is a pool of skilled labour in the Northern Region. The proportion of unemployed to vacancies in the Northern Region is about ten to one compared with three to one in Birmingham and one to one in the London area. In Spennymoor, part of my constituency, the unemployment rate is about 5·3 per cent. The Minister should regard that as very serious. It will be worse in a few years' time, when there will be further redundancy in shipbuilding and ship-repairing, on British Railways and particularly in the collieries.
Naturally, we on this side become very angry when the Minister talks about jobs in the pipeline and then hides behind a load of platitudes. All that I can say about the jobs in the pipeline is that it is time that they saw the light of day. We are getting fed up with all this talk and it is about time that there was more drive behind the efforts of the President of the Board of Trade and of the Parliamentary Secretary.
I pay a great tribute to the Parliamentary Secretary for visiting the North-East. He visited sites, talked with many people and has been brought up to date with the very serious situation in that area. His journey will have been worth while if he has come back prepared to answer two questions which have been asked time and again by many hon. Members on this side and even by some hon. Members opposite.
The first question is what immediate steps he has in mind for reducing the number of unemployed. The second is what long-term plan is in contemplation to enable the region to stand the strain if an economic blizzard hits the country.

Whenever there is economic stress, the Northern Region feels it, not worse than any other area, because Scotland and Northern Ireland feel it as well, but as badly as any other area. We are entitled to have answers to these questions. We do not want to be told stories about the Local Employment Act. We have heard them time and again.
If the hon. Member for Hexham can tell us about the number of people who have received grants under the Local Employment Act, I can tell him about the numbers of people who have applied for grants, but whose applications have been refused. At Hetton, in my constituency, a person applied for a grant to start a brick factory, but he was turned down. My hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-East (Mr. Ainsley) has a similar case. Hon. Members representing north-east constituencies can bear out the fact that far too many applications for grants have been turned down. There is definite proof that more applications for grants have been refused than have been granted.

Mr. Speir: No.

Mr. Ernest Popplewell: Is it not correct that out of 57 applications to introduce new industry in the North-East only 18 have been granted and that the rest have been refused?

Mr. Grey: That proves my point. If the President of the Board of Trade does not do something about this matter now, there may well be a good deal of unnecessary hardship and poverty.
I know that we have not the massive unemployment which we had in the 1930s. But do the Government really believe that they make a success of things if they prevent them from getting as bad as they were in the 1930s? I do not believe for one moment that we shall ever return to those days.

Mr. William Baxter: May I draw my hon. Friend's attention to what has happened in certain parts of Scotland, especially in Bonnybridge and Denny? I met people of that area last night and we set up an industrial committee. The conditions there are worse than they were in the 1930s, and it is time that something was done about them. There are areas in


which conditions are not as bad as they were in the 1930s, but they are very much worse in parts of Scotland. Does my hon. Friend expect the crowd of nitwits opposite to do very much about them?[HON. MEMBERS: "Do not be offensive."] It is time that someone was offensive about this situation.

Mr. Grey: What my hon. Friend says emphasises my point. If conditions in some parts are worse than they were in the 1930s, they must be bad. However, I do not believe that the North-East will ever get back to the conditions of the 1930s.
The Government cannot pretend that this is a success story by claiming that conditions are better than they were in the 1930s, because we shall not return to those conditions, in spite of the Government.
I believe that the crime of the Government is that, with all the modern means at their disposal and with all the legislation at their fingertips, they are still allowing by their deliberate acts certain areas of the country like the North-East, Scotland, Northern Ireland and even Wales, to be infinitely worse off than any other areas in the country. No doubt, Scottish and Northern Ireland hon. Members will support that point of view, as well as Welsh Members.
I want to emphasise the discrepancy between the North and the South, which is the chief fault here. There ought to be greater effort made to spread industry more evenly across the country. The Northern Region now has 3·5 per cent. unemployment, which is about three times the national average. We on this side of the Committee are angry about it, and we are getting fed up, because we feel that nothing has been done. What we want now is a real spirit and drive for the proper distribution of industry, and we say that if the Government themselves will not do it they should get out and let somebody in who will.

6.12 p.m.

Mr. Stanley R. McMaster: I should like to draw particular attention to one of the points just made by the hon. Member for Durham (Mr. Grey)—the position of Northern Ireland.
In Northern Ireland, during the past twelve months, unfortunately, we have

had increasing unemployment. We are experiencing difficulty at the moment in attracting new industries, because of the uncertainty which precedes the entry of the United Kingdom into the Common Market. As a result, not so much industrial development has been taking place in the past six months as in the years preceding that period.
I noted with interest the Question asked at Question Time today by my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson), who wanted a Development Council to be set up in Scotland to match that over which Viscount Chandos presides in Northern Ireland. In spite of all the great efforts which have been made by the Northern Ireland Development Council, the Ministry of Commerce in Northern Ireland and the assistance of my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade and his Department, we are facing unemployment which has risen from 7 per cent. to just over 8 per cent.
The shipbuilding industry in my own constituency has suffered particularly from the recession in shipbuilding in the United Kingdom and in the shipping industry as a whole. Over 12,000 men have been laid off at Harland and Wolff's yard and in the past fortnight, the chairman of another large and important firm—Short Bros. and Harland—has forecast that unless new orders come from the Government for the Belfast air freighter, there will be redundancy in that factory. The Chairman of the Development Corporation, Lord Chandos himself, has pointed to the difficulties to be faced during the coming year in finding new industries willing to set up in Ulster.
It was with these fears in mind that the Ulster Unionist Members in this House spoke during the debates on the Local Employment Act, 1960. We were assured at that time that the Board of Trade would use its influence in areas covered by the industrial development certificate to attract or to direct industries to Northern Ireland. This need is greater today than it has ever been since the war. Therefore, I should like to draw particular attention to the needs of Northern Ireland in this debate, and to ask my right hon. Friend whether he will give the same undertakings are were given during the progress of the Local


Employment Bill through the House of Commons, namely, that any firms in overcrowded areas which are looking for a development certificate in other areas in which the use of industrial development certificates is not desirable because of the great pressure of industry there will have their attention drawn, first, to the needs of Northern Ireland, simply because of the unemployment which now exists there and the other difficulties which we are experiencing at present.
We hive in Northern Ireland many very skilled engineers who have been trained in such exacting industries as shipbuilding, and who are experienced not only in general engineering, but in all forms of machine engineering and electronic engineering. Many of them have been trained in apprenticeship schools and are now engaged in producing advanced electronic computers and machines of that category. For this reason, and for the others which have already been expressed in the debate—that where there is a pool of unemployment it is for the economic good of the country as a whole that work should be sent to those areas in order to take the maximum advantage of our labour force—I make this plea to my right hon. Friend. This applies particularly to Northern Ireland, where there are many middle-aged men who have reached an advanced degree of efficiency but who now find themselves unemployed owing to the recession in the shipbuilding industry, after spending many years working in that industry.
I suggest that it is not reasonable to expect such men to be prepared to break their family ties and seek work in Britain. These are men who are in middle age, with young families and houses, who are settled in that area, but who find themselves unemployed. They feel that they are justified in asking that the policy of the Imperial Government should he to direct industries to such areas, where they will be able to continue to give of their best. These men are known for their hard work and their industry, and for the lack of industrial disputes. The trade unions have a fine record of co-operation and of conscientious working with management in order to avoid industrial disputes. Therefore, I press this point most strongly.
My hon. Friend the Parliamentary Secretary, in his opening speech, referred to the "rat race" which occurs in areas in which there is over-employment, and in which wages are forced up from one firm to the next, and in which it is not always the most economic firm which offers the best wages. A race like that can only do harm to industry and to the United Kingdom when engaged in competition with countries abroad. If industries are sent to areas of high unemployment, we do not get the same disproportion in wages and salaries as between one part of the country and another.
Finally, I should like to ask my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade to consider, along with his colleagues in the Government, what other work which is in the direct control of the Government can be attracted or directed to Northern Ireland; work such as that in Ordnance Factories and that referred to in a recent Question by my hon. Friend the Member for Belfast, North (Mr. Stratton Mills) concerning the manufacture of clothing for the British Army. Work like that has been sent to the Irish Republic, when it could equally well be done at the taxpayers' expense in the clothing and making-up industries of Northern Ireland. There is scope here for an inquiry in order to find out whether ordnance work and work of this nature is being properly shared out throughout the United Kingdom as a whole.
These are the points which I am particularly glad to have the opportunity of making in this debate, and to which I hope I shall be able to receive an answer from my right hon. Friend the President of the Board of Trade.

6.20 p.m.

Mr. James Boyden: I have considerable sympathy with the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. MacMaster), and I am sure that he will vote with hon. Members on this side of the Committee in the Lobby tonight.
This is how the so-called success of the Local Employment Act looks to people in my constituency. The unemployment figure at the time of the General Election was just under 2,000. Today, it is 2,500 with a percentage rate of 5·3. Although there have been slight dips from time to time, unemployment


has steadily mounted and has reached nearly 2,500 every month this year. On several occasions the Parliamentary Secretary has spoken to members of local councils in my constituency. He has spoken to the North-East Development Council and has expressed good will. But the fact remains that the good will have not led to action. We are told about jobs in the pipeline, but the unemployment figure rises.
When the Parliamentary Secretary came to Newcastle recently he surprised me by saying that the Board of Trade did not have adequate time to take action when collieries were closed and that there was room for improvement. I hope that in the fortnight which has elapsed since he visited Newcastle the hon. Gentleman will have furbished up his administration and that now he will be able to tell us that when the Coal Board contemplates closing collieries the Minister of Power passes full information to the President of the Board of Trade so that immediate action may be taken.
I hope that the hon. Gentleman will be able to tell the Committee that he can take action in advance of unemployment which may be caused in that way, that action can be taken about two years in advance of pit closures. Otherwise, how in heaven's name can it be expected that factories will be developed to take up the unemployment caused when collieries are closed unless action is taken eighteen months or two years in advance?
The hon. Member for Durham, North-West (Mr. Ainsley) and myself spend our time with this problem. It is up to the Board of Trade to take the matter far more seriously and to initiate action rather than express pious sentiments. The President of the Board of Trade knows the situation regarding the railways is precarious. There are 2,300 people employed in the Shildon workshops and some of my constituents are employed in Darlington railway shops. When we ask what factory development has taken place in Shildon the answer is, none. It is true that Shildon has been put in a local development district and the name of the place has been written down on a piece of paper, but nothing has happened.
The district council has taken an interest in one particular 12-acre site and has tried to draw industry to it, but nothing has happened. The Bishop Auckland Council is trying to develop a large area at Fielden Bridge, about which I have spoken to the Board of Trade, to attract industry. The only result has been that one industrialist "nibbled" but went away and there is no prospective development there at all. The Barnard Castle Rural District Council is concerned with the same problem and has discussed with all sorts of people what could be done. They showed the Parliamentary Secretary a site at Evenwood but nothing has happened. The Barnard Urban District Council is in the same position and as the area about which the hon. Member for Barnstaple spoke—[HON. MEMBERS: "North Devon."]—when the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe); I suppose that we shall not see him in this Chamber after the next election——

Mr. Thorpe: The hon. Gentleman should not be so certain.

Mr. Boyden: We do not see any of his colleagues in the Chamber at the moment.

An Hon. Member: They may be in the two Standing Committees.

Mr. Thorpe: They cannot be in three places at once.

Mr. Boyden: In rural areas like those on either side of the Tees, the rural districts of the North Riding and Durham, although the actual unemployment figure is not above the national average we know from experience of the incredible difficulties facing girls who wish to get office jobs and young men who wish to take up apprenticeships. It may mean travelling from areas far up the Tees to Darlington and Middlesbrough, which is an inhuman demand to make of young people.
There is a considerable amount of under-employment which is not shown in the figures. Many women who would wish to work are unable to do so. Many alder people over 60 who would like to work cannot do so. I think that the migration from my constituency is higher than the figures show, but census figures give the migration to be at the rate of 600 a year——

Mr. P. Williams: They are coming into my constituency at the rate of 2,000.

Mr. Boyden: That is very fortunate for the hon. Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams), but perhaps he would have greater success at the Board of Trade than I have.
The census figures of migration for my constituency from 1951 to 1961 is 5,900. In the constituency of my hon. Friend the Member for Durham, North-West the figure is 5,000. I think it fair to say that the actual figure of unemployment for Bishop Auckland is 2,500, to which should be added another 1,000 migrating or not on the insurance books but desiring work, to make a total of 3,500 needing jobs. This gives a percentage of about 7 or 8 per cent.
In discussions with officials we are frequently told that some areas of the country are unattractive to industry. It is beyond the capacity of the local councils which I have mentioned and of the Durham County Council on their own to remedy the industrial neglect of years by tidying up the pit heaps, cleaning the rivers and dealing with land which industrially is derelict. They cannot refurbish some of the very good villages in which people want to live because of the industrial and social economy from which we suffer. It is up to the President of the Board of Trade, in collaboration with the Ministry of Housing and Local Government, to ensure that a great deal more money is spent not only on industrial improvement but on social amenities so that industrialists will be attracted to the area. That social problem is as serious as the need for money to be spent industrially in the area.
I hope that the Minister will talk to his colleagues in the Government about the need which exists in my constituency and other Durham constituencies in this respect.

6.27 p.m.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: Hon. Members on both sides of the Committee have naturally dealt with this problem from a local point of view. I wish to try to draw together some of the conclusions which we may reach about the national picture. Hon. Members on this side of the Committee

who have taken part in the debate have shown a sense of urgency regarding the level of unemployment. But it seemed to me that the only speaker from the other side of the Committee who shared that sense of urgency was the hon. Member for Belfast, East (Mr. MacMaster). In view of the appalling rate of local unemployment in Ireland, I hope that he and his hon. Friends who represent constituencies in Northern Ireland will vote with us in the Division Lobbies.
The speech of the Parliamentary Secretary and those of the hon. Members for Hexham (Mr. Speir) and Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) were essentially complacent speeches. I was amazed that the hon. Member for Sunderland, South should devote most of his speech to talking about whether factories should be owned by the State or by private enterprise when the rate of unemployment in Sunderland is 4·5 per cent. I should have thought that the hon. Member would have been obsessed with that figure.

Mr. P. Williams: May I quote some figures to prove the success of the Local Employment Act? At Hepworth and Grandage there are 1,000 jobs; at Jackson the Tailor, 1,000 jobs; at James R. Jobling, 1,200 and at Steels Engineering, David Brown and Ericsson's there are 1,185. At Perdio there are 1,000, and there are another 200 expansions. So the Act is working.

Mr. Prentice: We would all agree, I think, that there have been new jobs provided by the Act and that there are jobs in the pipe-line. But the relation of those figures to the problem is something about which I wish to speak in a moment.
Let us start with the Hay figure for unemployment, which is 423,800. Full employment is a relative term. A year ago the figure was 299,276. Under Governments from both sides of the House the figure for unemployment since the end of the war has been below the 300,000 mark. But figures such as we have at present include at least 100,000 unnecessary cases of unemployment. For those 100,000 people and their dependants the problem is urgent and we should have regard to the frustration and hardship involved.
As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Bishop Auckland (Mr. Boyden), the figures always underestimate the actual amount of unemployment involved in particular regions. In the areas of local unemployment retired people are not able to stay on at work and do not register for employment. Married women do not register for employment. Also, there is a good deal of short-time working in various industries, and therefore the problem of unemployment and under-employment in the areas about which we have been talking is much worse than the figures show, and I suggest that the figures themselves should give us cause for concern.
This is only part of the problem affecting those areas. The tragedy is the way in which so many young and enterprising people from Scotland, Wales and the North East have had to leave their families and friends and go to other areas to find work. Some areas of the country are, relatively speaking, in decline.
Perhaps I might refer to the other side of the problem, the effect on those areas which are already overcrowded. I represent a constituency in the Greater London Area. I put it to the Government that in Greater London, in the Birmingham area, and in the other crowded areas, every social problem with which the Government and local councils have to grapple is aggravated by more people coming into an area which is already too small to hold them. Housing progress made by local councils is cancelled out by more people coming in and demanding homes. The cost of land goes up, whether it is to be used for public purposes or for industry. Indeed, industrial costs are increased because of the rising cost of land on which to build factories, offices, and so on. There is a scarcity of open space for every public purpose. There is more and more congestion of traffic and people have to spend longer and longer travelling to work. Recently I saw some figures which suggested that in the Greater London area the average worker would have to spend between 2½ and 3 years of his life in rush-hour travel because of the way in which some areas are becoming congested, resulting in people having to live further away from their work. Some town planners have

held out the prospect that one day everybody in Great Britain will live in a great, elongated city, probably called Londbirm, stretching from London to Birmingham, with the rest of Great Britain becoming a desert.
It is against that tendency that we have to consider whether the Government's policy is adequate. Hon. Gentlement opposite talk as though this all started with the Local Employment Act, 1960. In fact, hon. Gentlemen opposite have been in office since 1951, and it is their policy since then which is being debated today, and on which the country will wish to record a verdict.
When hon. Gentlemen opposite say that there are so many thousands of jobs in the pipeline, might I remind them that during the fifties—that is, taking the period from the beginning of 1951 to the end of 1960—the number of people in civil employment went up by nearly 200,000 every year. Nearly 200,000 new jobs were created for most of those people. Over half of those new jobs were in the three regions centred on London—London and the South East, the Eastern Region, and the Southern Region. Almost one-quarter of those new jobs were in two Midland Regions, and the other quarter were in the remaining six regions of the country. It is against that hind of process that we have to consider the figures given to us this afternoon by the Parliamentary Secretary.
I suggest that several things are happening at the moment which are likely to make the position even worse. One thing is that the industries and services which on the whole exist in the South, the East and the Midlands, are expanding, and on the whole it is the older declining industries which are to be found in the North, in Scotland, and in Wales. The pace of change is quickening all the time. This is something which in itself we welcome. Technological change is speeding up. The pattern of trade is changing. If this country enters the Common Market, this will encourage the faster development of expanding industries and will present greater challenges to older industries which are having a struggle to exist. For these reasons there will be more people moving, or wanting to move, from the older industries to the newer ones, or from the older areas to the expanding ones.
London, and to a lesser extent Birmingham, are commercial centres in which people work in offices, in professions, and so on. We know that the pattern of work has changed, in the sense that fewer people work at the bench and more do jobs in offices. The figures show that in recent years 15,000 new office jobs a year have been provided in central London. All this produces a snowball effect on smaller industries. It produces firms which do not come within the scope of the Government's control. It produces service industries. Bakeries, laundries, and that sort of thing go where there is a market and people move into London because jobs are available. This in turn leads to other industries moving in because there is a market, and so the snowball effect continues. A policy that is inadequate now will be even more inadequate in terms of the challenge with which we shall be faced in the next few years.
I promised to speak for only a few minutes, but I should like to reiterate briefly the constructive points we put forward. We all recognise that this is a national problem of great difficulty and complexity. We all supported the 1960 Act, although we said that it did not go far enough. We recognise that some things have been done under it, but not enough has been done. We say that the whole of this policy depends on a policy of economic growth. The Parliamentary Secretary says that it all depends on how much industry is on the move; that it depends on how much industry wants to move. I therefore think that the first requirement of this policy is to create a situation in which firms are eager to expand and will therefore respond positively to the controls which the Government exercise. Secondly, the Government should make more drastic use of both the positive and negative side of the Local Employment Act.
I do not want to repeat what my right hon. Friend the Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) said about this problem of office development, but I take up what the hon. Gentleman said about the difficulties of controlling it. The hon. Gentleman produced two excuses. He said that it would be difficult for the Government to decide whether or not to grant permission for new office accommodation because they had no criteria

on which to work. This seems to me to be about the most feeble excuse that could be advanced. Of course, it would be a new problem, just as the control of industry was at one time a new problem, but surely the Government could start from the point that anyone who wanted new office accommodation in London or in Birmingham would have placed on him the onus of proving why it should be there rather than somewhere else? How this onus of proof would be balanced could be worked out by the experts, but if the Government started from that point most of us feel that a good deal of office accommodation could be put up in other areas.
The other point made by the Parliamentary Secretary—and I think that in a sense it is a valid point—was that as offices are built speculatively and that those who build them do not know which firms will occupy them. But surely it is not beyond the wit of the Board of Trade and whichever Department handles this to devise a system of permits whereby those who want to occupy offices must get permission to do so, and those who want to build offices must show that there are enough people with permits to occupy the offices which they will build. This might in the first instance lead to delay in the provision of new office accommodation in London and these other crowded areas, but that would not be a bad thing.
Surely the difficulties could be overcome if the determination were there? We put it to the Government that as more and more people move into commercial and professional jobs and away from the factories the whole policy of being able to control the distribution of industry will depend on the Government taking this further step towards controlling office building, and that if they do not take such a step a future Government will have to do so.
What we need is far more co-ordination in the Board of Trade, in the Ministry of Labour, in the Ministry of Transport and in the Ministry of Housing and Local Goxernment, to produce a major strategy for the distribution both of industry and population in this country. It is absurd that the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) should have to tell us that at a time when one of the major obstacles


to creating new employment in his constituency is the lack of transport facilities, British Railways should be considering closing down the railway line which leads to that area. There must be more co-ordination and a real strategy to deal with the whole problem.
When the 1959 General Election campaign was in progress, the then President of the Board of Trade, now Minister of Education. said:
We intend to tackle unemployment with the methods of mobile warfare.
The only adequate comment on the success or failure of that intention is the comment which has been made by the electors of West Lothian and of West Middlesbrough in the last few weeks. We shall back them up in the Division Lobby later this evening.

6.42 p.m.

The President of the Board of Trade (Mr. F. J. Erroll): The hon. Member for East Ham, North (Mr. Prentice) and I both agreed to restrict our winding-up speeches to a short time to allow as much time as possible for back-bench Members to make their contribution. I suggest that that decision was an entirely right one, because in consequence we have been able to have an interesting debate with a number of different points of view put forward.
At the time of the passing of the Local Employment Act, 1960, four main areas were in need of new industrial development: South Wales, Merseyside, the North-East Coast and Scotland. In the short space of two years, two out of the four are now virtually free of development district status. That is the measure of the great progress which has been made. It is also significant that in this debate today, no Welsh Members have been present.[Interruption.] I beg pardon of the right hon. Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths). No Welsh Members have spoken today, nor, apart from an intervention, did anyone speak in regard to Merseyside.

Mr. J. Griffiths: My only comment is that the time for debate has been limited. I restrained myself because many of my hon. Friends wanted to speak. Before the debate began, however, an area in South Wales had to be re-scheduled.

Mr. Erroll: I said "virtually free" from development district status. I do not want to arouse hon. Members' anxieties.
I was going on to make the point that that state of affairs shows that we have satisfied two out of the four main problem areas. I was grateful that two of my hon. Friends, the Members for Hexham (Mr. Speir) and for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams), should have taken a little of the time of the Committee to point out the success of the policy which we have pursued in the regions of their constituencies.

Mr. Collick: The Minister will, I am sure, readily agree that I made the point that one of the areas, Merseyside, still has 4.5 per cent. unemployment, which is three times the national average.

Mr. Erroll: Yes, but there are many more jobs in prospect—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—and they will become realities.[Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh about jobs in prospect, but they never admit when those jobs become realities. In a serious matter of this sort we should have a serious debate. We try to give as much information to hon. Members as possible about what is in prospect, but, naturally, these jobs take time to mature, but they do mature, nearly all of them. They certainly have done in South Wales and a great number of them already have on Merseyside.
I welcome this debate on the distribution of industry policy because I believe that we have a very good story to tell. It is by no means complete, but we are making good progress. I remind the Committee particularly because the hon. Member for East Ham, North made the point that we should not simply think of progress since the passing of the 1960 Act, that all the main Acts have been passed by Conservative Governments.
There were the Special Areas Acts before the war, the Distribution of Industry Act, 1945, was passed into law by the Conservative Caretaker Government, then we had that highly effective and useful but small piece of legislation the Distribution of Industry (Industrial Finance) Act, 1958, and, finally, the Local Employment Act, 1960. Taken together these Acts, particularly the last one, have been a great success.


[Interruption.] That intervention comes ill from the hon. Member for Greenock (Dr. Dickson Mabon), where a large new dock is going up.

Dr. J. Dickson Mabon: But where unemployment runs at 8 per cent.

Mr. Jay: The Minister has made a debating point. He knows well that the 1945 Act was introduced into the House by the late Mr. Hugh Dalton, of the Coalition Government, and not the Caretaker Government.

Mr. Erroll: And we saw it through on to the Statute Book.
The Acts have been forcefully administered while, at the same time, it has been recognised that only a minority of industrial development is mobile. One of the facts of life which we must recognise is that a firm which has existing works and continues to employ about the same number of people is not a candidate for being moved. It is established in its own place and there is nothing to be done about it. All that one can hope is that when the firm is expanding it may be prepared either to move in toto or to set up a separate subsidiary factory in a place of our proposal.
Many factory extensions cannot be hived off, because to attempt to hive off the extension would be to cut the enterprise in half. As distinct from worms, one cannot cut private firms in two and expect both halves to go on wriggling. It is a serious decision for a firm to decide whether to hive off the extension to another part of the country, perhaps several hundred miles away from its headquarters, or to go in toto to another part of the country. However generous may be the assistance which the Government can give, the full cost and risk of a false decision rests upon the firm itself.
I was interested to listen to the many percentage figures which the right hon. Member for Battersea, North (Mr. Jay) quoted in his speech. He referred to figures which appeared in his book, which I enjoyed reading, that the development areas got 30 per cent. of new factory building between 1945 and 1951 but got only 18½ per cent. between 1953 and 1958. It is necessary to break down

the earlier percentage figure a little more, because, in fact, development areas got 45 per cent. of a smaller total of factory building in the three years 1945 to 1947 but got only 19 per cent. in the four years from 1947 to 1951. Therefore, the change in the percentage going to the development areas came about not with a Conservative victory, but with the appointment of the right hon. Member for Huyton (Mr. H. Wilson) to the presidency of the Board of Trade.

Mr. Jay: It was because so many factories were started in the first two years that fewer would have been finished if that amount extra had been started some years afterwards.

Mr. Erroll: I call that a model of explicity.
In a debate like this, we have to face the fact that the two sides of the Committee are arguing from opposite premises. The Opposition do not like the free enterprise system or the way it works. It is against that background that I make the point that the Opposition say that they would control industrial development certificates more strictly. What would they do when firms decided not to expand rather than to move where they were told to go?
1 suppose that it would be said that they were failing the nation, which, of course, would mean that they would then be nationalised. Are the Opposition prepared to go as far as that in applying a policy which, they say, they would apply more toughly than we would? I assure them that there is no way of doing more than we are doing within the ambit of the free enterprise system and the right of a man to set up a business where he wants to do so.
If they were good boys and went where they were told, the firms would probably still be nationalised, because they would then be in receipt of State aid for going to a development district; and according to Labour's pamphlet Signposts for the 'Sixties, they would be nationalised through the receipt of subsidies or loans because it was part of the policy of the party opposite to nationalise firms engaged in receiving State money. While it is, naturally, quite proper for the Opposition to criticise what we are doing, it is hollow of them


to suggest that they would be able to operate a tougher policy without encountering difficulties of the sort which I have described.
During the few minutes remaining, I should like to say something about office building in London. I know that this is a problem, but the important thing to realise is that a concentration on the problem of London offices is no substitute for getting on with the job of securing a proper distribution of industry. I listened with great interest to what the right hon. Gentleman had to say on this subject, because I know that he has made a close study of it. He said that we were failing to control office employment. Does he mean that we should limit the number of office workers—because that is office employment—or does he mean that we should control the office blocks or the people who wish to rent offices?
The great difference between control of industry by means of industrial development certificates and control of offices by a somewhat similar system is that with the one we have one works, one occupier, whereas in one office block there may be a couple of dozen occupiers. The sort of control which the hon. Member for East Ham, North outlined struck me as being one which would be extremely cumbersome and tedious to operate in practice and would probably lead to a severe reduction in the amount of essential office building which ought to be going on.
Do right hon. and hon. Members opposite really propose that the number of office workers in the South-East of England should be limited? If office building is limited it merely means that office workers must work in bad or over-crowded offices, and businesses would be forced to use residential property as offices, which would still further aggravate the housing shortage. That took place in West London through the delays in rebuilding the City.
Do not let us forget that invisible exports are still worth about £2,000 million a year, and many of these exports —such as insurance, banking, tourism, shipping, and other services—are run from offices. I do not think that a bank or insurance company would be able to compete with the best in Europe from

the depths, of Wales or Scotland. Offices in the suburbs are a help, but they do not deal with the main question. Again a large firm might not be able to recruit mainly from a particular suburb.
It was the select Committee on Estimates which criticised the division of the Admiralty offices between London and Bath, when the Government tried in a practical way to give effect to the decentralisation of offices from the capital. It was done to restrict the growth of offices in Whitehall, but we were strongly criticised for the £39,000 per year spent on travelling and the 26,000 bags and packages which had to be transported between the two. We were criticised for waste of time, energy and efficiency.
Where we can move office accommodation as an example to industry, we do so. The Ministry of Pensions and National Insurance Offices at Newcastle have been mentioned, and there are the Premium Bonds administration office at St. Anne's-on-Sea and the Post Office Savings Bank on the north-east coast. In view of the time we have spent on offices in this debate, I would remind right hon. and hon. Gentlemen that, in discussion on the Local Employment Act, although a lot was said about extending I.D.C. control to offices, the Opposition did not bother to divide the House when the opportunity came. They did not feel very strongly about it and the problem was much the same then as it is now.
It is often said that the Government have the powers but do not use them. In fact, however, we make full use of them. We have been refusing industrial development certificates in the southeastern area. I have made a special analysis of the 46 schemes of over 50,000 square feet approved in London and the south-eastern area last year. Eight Were for non-manufacturing industries, 31 were of the type essentially tied to their present districts. Only 7 were new projects—and all these were successfully moved out of the central area.
Nobody likes to be refused. Every industrialist seems to think that he is a special case, but we argue patiently with each firm. I was grateful to my hon. Friend the Member for Sunderland, South (Mr. P. Williams) for his generous remarks about the work of Regional Controllers. I accept that local


authorities usually want industrial expansion in their own areas and support the firms. The local Member of Parliament, of: whichever party, usually enters in support and local branches of trade unions, without regard to the needs of their unemployed fellow members in other parts of the country, usually press their local interest as well.
I would like to have had time to deal with the interesting case raised by the hon. Member for Devon, North (Mr. Thorpe) about the development at Tiverton, but surely it was right that the firm from Birmingham—not the Churchill Machine Tool Company which is, I remind him, in my constituency, but a subsidiary of Charles Churchill and Company, Ltd., which wanted to build boats should have gone to the Isle of Wight, which is a development district. The proposed development the mentions was only granted on condition that the firm set up additional employment in Cornwall snore than equal to the amount of additional employment we are getting in Tiverton. We are getting two for the price of one, which is a very good bargain.

Mr. Thorpe: Mr. Thorpe rose——

Mr. Erroll: I cannot give way, for I have very little time left.
Under Section 7, in the twelve months ended 12th March, 1961, grants totalling approximately £250,000, and in the twelve months ended 12th March, 1962, grants totalling over £1 million were made for water, sewerage and road schemes. We continue to do our best to steer firms to development districts. We like to offer a migrant firm a choice of locations in different development districts, because whichever district it chooses helps to reduce unemployment equally. As circumstances change we change the list, but we do resist having too many new places on it if possible, because we prefer to concentrate on the districts most greatly in need.

I was glad that my hon. Friend the Member far Belfast, East (Mr. McMaster) was able to make the case for Northern Ireland. I endorse what he said. We will do our best to encourage migrant firms to go to Northern Ireland, though I cannot go all the way with him on Government contracts.

We try to encourage not only British firms, but also firms from overseas, particularly the United States. We have set up an office in New York so that we can contact American firms interested in setting up in this country. One of my officers there—an excellent man and, incidentally, a Scot—spends a great deal of his time on pressing the advantages of the development districts. He is a most devoted official, determined to bring new industry to the right places in Britain.

We can be proud of the results of this policy. In the first two years of operation of the Act, assistance totalling almost £70 million has been offered and accepted for three hundred projects estimated to produce over 70,000 new jobs. I admit that there is a lot to be done in Scotland and on the North-East Coast, but as proof of our determination I mention what has been achieved in South Wales and what we are achieving on Merseyside. These successes are real and substantial. They have been brought about by a tough but realistic industrial development certificate policy. We have secured the co-operation of private industry, which is essential in a matter of this kind, and have brought thousands of jobs to those in need of them. I ask the Committee to endorse this policy.

Mr. Jay: In view of the unconvincing nature of the right hon. Gentleman's reply, I beg to move that Item Class IV, Vote I (Board of Trade), be reduced by £5.

Question put:

The Committee divided: Ayes 206, Noes 263.

Abse, Leo
Bellenger, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Bowden, Rt. Hn. H.W. (Leics, S.W.)


Ainsley, William
Bence, Cyril
Bowen, Roderic (Cardigan)


Albu, Austen
Bennett, J. (Glasgow, Bridgeton)
Bowles, Frank


Allaun, Frank (Salford, E.)
Benson, Sir George
Boyden, James


Allen, Scholefield (Crewe)
Blackburn, F.
Braddock, Mrs. E. M.


Awbery, Stan
Blyton, William
Bray, J. W.


Bacon, Miss Alice
Boardman, H.
Brockway, A. Fenner


Baxter, William (Stirlingshire, W.)
Bottomley, Rt. Hon. A. G.
Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)




Brown, Thomas (Ince)
Jay, Rt. Hon. Douglas
Randall, Harry


Butler, Herbert (Hackney, C.)
Jeger, George
Rankin, John


Butler, Mrs. Joyce (Wood Green)
Jenkins, Roy (Stechford)
Reid, William


Callaghan, James
Johnson, Carol (Lewisham, S.)
Rhodes, H.


Chapman, Donald
Jones, Dan (Burnley)
Roberts, Albert (Normanton)


Cliffe, Michael
Jones, Elwyn (West Ham, S.)
Roberts, Goronwy (Caernarvon)


Collick, Percy
Jones, Jack (Rotherham)
Robertson, John (Paisley)


Corbet, Mrs. Freda
Jones, J. Idwal (Wrexham)
Robinson, Kenneth (St. Pancras, N.)


Craddock, George (Bradford, S.)
Jones, T. W. (Merioneth)
Rodgers, W. T. (Stockton)


Cronin, John
Kelley, Richard
Rogers, G. H. R. (Kensington, N.)


Crosland, Anthony
Kenyon, Clifford
Royle, Charles (Salford, West)


Dalyell, T.
Key, Rt. Hon. C. W.
Shinwell, Rt. Hon. E.


Darling, George
King, Dr. Horace
Short, Edward


Davies, G. Elfed (Rhondda, E.)
Lawson, George
Silverman, Julius (Aston)


Delargy, Hugh
Ledger, Ron
Silverman, Sydney (Nelson)


Diamond, John
Lee, Frederick (Newton)
Skeffington, Arthur


Dodds, Norman
Lee, Miss Jennie (Cannock)
Slater, Mrs. Harriet (Stoke, N.)


Donnelly, Desmond
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Slater, Joseph (Sedgefield)


Dugdale, Rt. Hon. John
Lewis, Arthur (West Ham, N.)
Small, William


Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
Loughlin, Charles
Smith, Ellis (Stoke, S.)


Edelman, Maurice
Lubbock, Eric
Sorensen, R. W.


Edwards, Rt. Hon. Ness (Caerphilly)
Mabon, Dr. J. Dickson
Soskice, Rt. Hon Sir Frank


Edwards, Robert (Bilston)
McCann, John
Spriggs, Leslie


Edwards, Walter (Stepney)
MacDermot, Niall
Steele, Thomas


Evans, Albert
Mclnnes, James
Stewart, Michael (Fulham)


Fernyhough, E.
Mackie, John (Enfield, East)
Stones, William


Finch, Harold
McLeavy, Frank
Strachey, Rt. Hon. John


Fitch, Alan
MacMillan, Malcolm (Western Isles)
Strauss, Rt. Hn. G. R. (Vauxhall)


Fletcher, Eric
Mallalieu, J.P.W. (Huddersfield, E.)
Stross, Dr. Barnett(Stoke-on-Trent, C.)


Fraser, Thomas (Hamilton)
Manuel, Archie
Swain, Thomas


Gaitskell, Rt. Hon. Hugh
Mapp, Charles
Swingler, Stephen


Galpern, Sir Myer
Marsh, Richard
Taverne, D.


Ginsburg, David
Mayhew, Christopher
Taylor, Bernard (Mansfield)


Gordon Walker, Rt. Hon. P. C.
Mellish, R. J.
Thomas, George (Cardiff, W.)


Gourlay, Harry
Mendelson, J. J.
Thomson, G. M. (Dundee, E.)


Grey, Charles
Milne, Edward
Thornton, Ernest


Griffiths, David (Rother Valley)
Mitchison, G. R.
Thorpe, Jeremy


Griffiths, Rt. Hon. James (Lianelly)
Monslow, Walter
Tomney, Frank


Gunter, Ray
Moody, A. S.
Wade, Donald


Hale, Leslie (Oldham, W.)
Moyle, Arthur
Warbey, William


Hall, Rt. Hn. Glenvil (Colne Valley)
Mulley, Frederick
Watkins, Tudor


Hannan, William
Neal, Harold
Weitzman, David


Harper, Joseph
Oliver, G. H.
Wells, Percy (Faversham)


Hayman, F. H.
Oram, A. E.
Wells, William (Walsall, N.)


Healey, Denis
Oswald, Thomas
White, Mrs. Eirene


Henderson, Rt. Hn. Arthur (RwlyRegls)
Owen, Will
Whitlock, William


Herbison, Miss Margaret
Padley, W. E.
Wigg, George


Hewitson, Capt. M.
Paget, R. T.
Wilkins, W. A.


Hill, J. (Midlothian)
Pannell, Charles (Leeds, W.)
Willey, Frederick


Hilton, A. V.
Pargiter, G. A.
Williams, D. J. (Neath)


Holman, Percy
Parker, John
Williams, Ll. (Abertillery)


Houghton, Douglas
Parkin, B. T.
Williams, W. R. (Openshaw)


Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Pavitt, Laurence
Willis, E. G. (Edinburgh, E.)


Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Pearson, Arthur (Pontypridd)
Winterbottom, R. E.


Hoy, James H.
Peart, Frederick
Woodburn, Rt. Hon. A.


Hughes, Cledwyn (Anglesey)
Pentland, Norman
Woof, Robert


Hughes, Emrys (S. Ayrshire)
Popplewell, Ernest
Yates, Victor (Ladywood)


Hughes, Hector (Aberdeen, N.)
Prentice, R, E.
Zilliacus, K.


Hunter, A. E.
Price, J. T. (Westhoughton)



Hynd, John (Attercliffe)
Probert, Arthur
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Irvine, A. J. (Edge Hill)
Proctor, W. T.
Mr. Ifor Davies and Mr. Redbead.


Janner, Sir Barnett
Pursey, Cmdr. Harry





NOES


Agnew, Sir Peter
Black, Sir Cyril
Clarke, Brig. Terence (Portsmth, W.)


Allan, Robert (Paddington, S.)
Bourne-Arton, A.
Cleaver, Leonard


Allason, James
Box, Donald
Cole, Norman


Arbuthnot, John
Boyle, Sir Edward
Collard, Richard


Ashton, Sir Hubert
Braine, Bernard
Cooper, A. E.


Atkins, Humphrey
Brooke, Rt. Hon. Henry
Cooper-Key, Sir Neill


Balniel, Lord
Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Cordeaux, Lt.-Col. J. K.


Barber, Anthony
Bryan, Paul
Corfield, F. V.


Barlow, Sir John
Buck, Antony
Costain, A. P.


Barter, John
Bullard, Denys
Coulson, Michael


Batsford, Brian
Bullus, Wing-Commander Eric
Craddock, Sir Beresford


Bell, Ronald
Burden, F. A.
Critchley, Julian


Berkeley, Humphry
Butcher, Sir Herbert
Crowder, F. P.


Bevins, Rt. Hon. Reginald
Campbell, Sir David (Belfast, S.)
Cunningham, Knox


Bidgood, John C.
Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Curran, Charles


Biffen, John
Cary, Sir Robert
Dance, James


Biggs-Davison, John
Channon, H. P. G.
d'Avigdor-Goldsmld, Sir Henry


Bingham, R. M.
Chataway, Christopher
de Ferranti, Basil


Birch, Rt. Hon. Nigel
Clark, Henry (Antrim, N.)
Digby, Simon Wingfield


Bishop F. P.
Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Donaldson, Cmdr. C. E. M.







Doughty, Charles
Lagden, Godfrey
Quennell, Miss J. M.


du Cann, Edward
Langford-Holt, Sir John
Redmayne, Rt. Hon. Martin


Duncan, Sir James
Leather, Sir Edwin
Rees, Hugh


Eden, John
Leavey, J. A.
Renton, David


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
Leburn, Gilmour
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas


Elliott, R. w. (Nwcaste-upon-Tyne, N.)
Lilley, F. J. P.
Ridsdale, Jullan


Emery, Peter
Lindsay, Sir Martin
Robinson, Rt. Hn. Sir R. (B'pool, S.)


Emmet, Hon. Mrs. Evelyn
Linstead, Sir Hugh
Rodgers, John (Sevenoaks)


Erroll, Rt. Hon. F. J.
Litchfield, Capt. John
Roots, William


Farey-Jones, F. W.
Lloyd, Rt. Hn. Geoffrey (Sut'nC'dfield)
Ropner, Col. Sir Leonard


Fell, Anthony
Lloyd, Rt. Hon. Selwyn (Wirral)
Russell, Ronald


Fisher, Nigel
Longbottom, Charles
Scott-Hopkins, James


Fletcher-Cooke, Charles
Longden, Gilbert
Sharples, Richard


Forrest, George
Loveys, Walter H.
Shaw, M.


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Lucas, Sir Jocelyn
Skeet, T. H. H.


Galbraith, Hon. T. G. D.
Lucas-Tooth, Sir Hugh
Smith, Dudley (Br'ntf'd &amp; Chiswick)


Gammans, Lady
McAdden, Sir Stephen
Smithers, Peter


Gardner, Edward
McLaren, Martin
Spearman, Sir Alexander


Gibson-Watt, David
McLaughlin, Mrs. Patricia
Speir, Rupert


Gilmour, Sir John
Maclay, Rt. Hon. John
Stevens, Geoffrey


Glover, Sir Douglas
Maclean, Sir Fitzroy (Bute&amp;N.Ayrs.)
Stodart, J. A.


Glyn, Dr. Alan (Clapham)
McLean, Neil (Inverness)
Stoddart-Scott, Col. Sir Malcolm


Goodhew, Victor
Macleod, Rt. Hn. Iain (Enfield, W.)
Storey, Sir Samuel


Gough, Frederick
McMaster, Stanley R.
Studholme, Sir Henry


Gower, Raymond
Macmillan, Rt. Hn. Harold (Bromley)
Summers, Sir Spencer


Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.
Macmillan, Maurice (Halifax)
Tapsell, Peter


Green, Alan
Macpherson, Niall (Dumfries)
Taylor, Sir Charles (Eastbourne)


Gresham Cooke, R.
Maddan, Martin
Taylor, Edwin (Bolton, E.)


Grosvenor, Lt.-Col. R. G.
Maginnis, John E.
Taylor, Frank(M'ch'st'r, Moss Side)


Gurden, Harold
Maitland, Sir John
Taylor, W. J. (Bradford, N.)


Hall, John (Wycombe)
Manningham-Buller, Rt. Hn. Sir R.
Teeling, Sir William


Hamilton, Michael (Wellingborough)
Markham, Major Sir Frank
Temple, John M.


Hare, Rt. Hon. John
Marshall, Douglas
Thomas, Leslie (Canterbury)


Harris, Frederic (Croydon, N.W.)
Marten, Neil
Thomas, Peter (Conway)


Harris, Reader (Heston)
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)
Thompson, Kenneth (Walton)


Harrison, Brian (Maldon)
Matthews, Gordon (Meriden)
Thompson, Richard (Croydon, S.)


Harrison, Col. Sir Harwood (Eye)
Mawby, Ray
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Harvey, Sir Arthur Vere (Macclesf'd)
Maxwell-Hyslop, R. J.
Tiley, Arthur (Bradford, W.)


Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Maydon, Lt.-Cmdr. S. L. C.
Tilney, John (Wavertree)


Harvie Anderson, Miss
Miscampbell, Norman
Touche, Rt. Hon. Sir Gordon


Hastings, Stephen
Montgomery, Fergus
Turner, Colin


Hay, John
More, Jasper (Ludlow)
Turton, Rt. Hon. R. H.


Heald, Rt. Hon. Sir Lionel
Morrison, John
Tweedsmuir, Lady


Hendry, Forbes
Mott-Radclyffe, Sir Charles
van straubezee, W. R.


Hill, Dr. Rt. Hon. Charles (Luton)
Nabarro, Gerald
Vane, W. M. F.


Hill, Mrs. Eveline (Wythenshawe)
Neave, Airey
Vaughan-Morgan, Rt. Hon. Sir John


Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Nicholls, Sir Harmar
Vickers, Miss Joan


Hirst, Geoffrey
Nicholson, Sir Godfrey
Walder, David


Hobson, Sir John
Noble, Michael
Walker, Peter


Holland, Philip
Nugent, Rt. Hon. Sir Richard
Walker-Smith, Rt. Hon. Sir Derek


Hope, Rt. Hon. Lord John
Orr, Capt. L. P. S.
Wall, Patrick


Hornby, R. P.
Orr-Ewing, C. Ian
Ward, Dame Irene


Hughes Hallett Vice-Admiral John
Osborn, John (Hallam)
Watkinson, Rt. Hon. Harold


Hughes-Young, Michael
Page, Graham (Crosby)
Wells, John (Maidstone)


Hulbert, Sir Norman
Page, John (Harrow, West)
Whitelaw, William


Hurd, Sir Anthony
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)
Williams, Dudley (Exeter)


Hutchison, Michael Clark
Peel, John
Williams, Paul (Sunderland, S.)


Iremonger, T. L.
Peyton, John
Wills, Sir Gerald (Bridgwater)


Irvine, Bryant Godman (Rye)
Pickthorn, Sir Kenneth
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


James, David
Pike, Miss Mervyn
Wise, A. R.


Jenkins, Robert (Dulwich)
Pitt, Miss Edith
Wolrige-Gordon, Patrick


Johnson, Dr. Donald (Carlisle)
Powell, Rt. Hon. J. Enoch
Woodnutt, Mark


Johnson, Eric (Blackley)
Price, David (Eastleigh)
Woollam, John


Jones, Rt. Hn. Aubrey (Hall Green)
Price, H. A. (Lewisham, w.)
Worsley, Marcus


Kerby, Capt. Henry
Prior, J. M. L.
Yates, William (The Wrekin)


Kerr, Sir Hamilton
Prior-Palmer, Brig. Sir Otho



Kershaw, Anthony
Profumo, Rt. Hon. John
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:


Kimball, Marcus
Proudfoot, Wilfred
Mr. Chichester-Clark and


Kirk, Peter
Pym, Francis
Mr. Finlay.

It being after Seven o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair, further Proceeding standing postponed until after the consideration of Private Business set down by direction Of THE CHAIRMAN

OF WAYS AND MEANS under Standing Order No. 7 (Time for taking Private Business).

Mr. DEPUTY-SPEAKER resumed the Chair.

LONDON COUNTY COUNCIL (GENERAL POWERS) BILL (by Order)

As amended, considered.

New Clause.—(AMENDMENTS AS TO APPLICATIONS FOR STREET TRADING LICENCES ETC.)

(1) The following subsection shall be substituted for subsection (1) of section 21 (Annual licences) of the Act of 1947—
(1) A person requiring an annual licence or the renewal of an annual licence shall make application in writing to the borough council and shall in such application state—

(a) his full name and address;
(b) the nature of the articles or things which he intends to sell or expose or offer for sale under the authority of the licence if granted or renewed;
(c) the place if any at which the articles or things will be stored by him at all times while they are not exposed or offered for sale;
(d) the street or streets in which he intends so to sell or expose or offer for sale and the nature and type of any receptacle which he intends to use in connection with any sale or exposure or offer for sale;
and may specify the name and address of a relative of his who is associated with or dependent upon the business of street trading in respect of which the application is made and to whom he desires the licence to be granted in the event of his death

(2) In subsection (2) of the said section 21 for the words "following subsection" there shall be substituted the words "two following subsections".

(3) After subsection (2) of the said section 21 there shall be inserted the following:
(2A) (a) When the holder of an annual licence who has specified the name and address of a relative to whom he desires the licence to be granted dies the borough council shall not (except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection) grant an annual licence in respect of the position or place in a street at which the deceased licencee was entitled to sell or expose or offer for sale articles or things under the authority of his licence until the expiration of ten days from the date of the death of the licencee.
(b) If during the said period of ten days the person specified by the deceased licencee. when making application for the licence, as the relative to whom he desired the licence to be granted in the event of his death makes application for the grant of an annual licence in respect of the position or place available in the street the borough council shall, save as provided by the next following subsection or by subsection (5) of section 24 (For preventing interference with traffic) of this Act. grant an annual licence to that person".

(4) After subsection (7) of the said section 21 there shall be inserted the following:
(8) For the purposes of this section a person shall be treated as being related to another if the latter is the wife, husband, father, mother, grandfather, grandmother, stepfather, stepmother, son, daughter, grandson, granddaughter, stepson, stepdaughter. brother, sister, half-brother or half-sister of the former and shall be deemed to be so related notwithstanding that he is so related only through an illegitimacy or in consequence of an adoption".—[Mr. Chataway.)

Brought up, and read the First time.

7.10 p.m.

Mr. Christopher Chataway: I beg to move, That the Clause be read a Second time.
This Clause is intended to deal with a serious injustice to street traders which is caused by the L.C.C. (General Powers) Act, 1947. The Bill as originally introduced to the House by the London County Council also sought to deal with this injustice. The inequity a rose, as many hon. Members will be aware, from a decision in 1960 in the case of Stepney Borough Council v. Schneider. The effect of that case was to deny to metropolitan borough councils any effective say in distributing licences to street traders.
Subsequent to the Stepney Borough Council v. Schneider case, a borough council is virtually required to give a street trading licence to the first person who applies for it. Previously, borough councils had thought that they had a good deal of discretion in granting these licences, but the present position is first come first served. This leads to a number of anomalies, but the most serious is in the case of a street trader's near relative, who may have been carrying an the business with him.
To my knowledge, there have been four cases recently when a street trader has died and when his close relative, who has been involved in the business with him, has not got to the town hall first and has consequently been deprived of his livelihood. This is the injustice which the Clause seeks to remedy. Not only has there been the instance of Schneider in Stepney, but in a case in Fulham a close relative found himself out of a job and deprived of his livelihood simply because somebody else applied to the town hall first. There is another case, that of Mr. Rose n from


Rupert Street, Westminster, and in my own constituency a case involving a Mr. Porritt.
Nine out of ten street trading businesses, I am assured, are carried on by families. They are not one-man businesses but the licences can be held by only one person, although the business may be a source of livelihood to a man and his wife and perhaps his son and his family. It is my contention that the law should take account of that and should give some safeguard to relatives.
Clause 25 of the original Bill would have given borough councils power to decide which applicant should be granted the licence, and that would have got around the difficulty. The Federation of Street Traders' Unions agreed to that Clause and in return was given an undertaking by the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee that borough councils would be recommended by that Committee to produce a form upon which a street trader could place the name of a relative whom he wished to succeed him in the event of his death. The undertaking went on to say that borough councils would be recommended to give the most serious consideration to that relative in the event of the death of the licence holder.
In a debate initiated in February by the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards), the principle of attempting to help the relatives of deceased street traders met with general approval, but after Second Reading of the Bill the Home Secretary reported on the original Clause 25 in these terms:
The Secretary of State sees objection in principle to conferring on local authorities with no right of appeal wide powers of discretion to grant or refuse a licence on which a trader's Livelihood may depend and he recommends that this Clause should not be allowed in its present form.
The Federation of Street Traders' Union had not appreciated that the right of appeal to the magistrates was being withdrawn under the provisions of Clause 25. I do not subscribe to any allegation that they were deliberately misled by the promoters of the Bill, but the fact remains that the street traders did not appreciate that the right of appeal to a magistrate, which they regarded as important, was being withdrawn. As the Home Secretary reported in those terms, the Federation withdrew

its support for Clause 25. The promoters of the Bill, the London County Council, then withdrew the Clause altogether and did not put forward any alternative. That is the reason for this Clause.
7.15 p.m.
In a limited way, the Clause attempts to meet the anomaly about which all are concerned. Its effect would be that the street trader in applying for a licence or a renewal of his licence would be enabled to place on the application form the name of a relative whom he wished to succeed him in the event of his death. When a licence holder died, the borough council would be required to hold open his site for ten days. For ten days the borough council would not be allowed to grant his licence to anybody else and during that time the relative would be able to apply for the licence.
This fairly closely follows the advice given in the Secretary of State's Report, in which he says:
The Secretary of State understands there have been cases of hardship arising from the requirement that a licence must be issued to the first applicant. He understands that the widow of a licensed street trader was unable to obtain a licence to trade in the pitch previously allocated to her husband because another application for the licence was received by the council before hers. The Secretary of State suggests that the proper way of dealing with cases of this kind would be to amend Part IV of the Act of 1947 by the addition of a provision enabling the borough council on the death of a licensee to grant a licence to his widow or next of kin if application was made within a reasonable time of his death.
It is this that we have attempted to do, and the form of the new Clause follows fairly closely the agreement reached with the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee prior to the introduction of the Bill.
As I understand it, there are two main objections to the Clause. First, the promoters argue that the Standing Joint Committee has not had time to consider the Clause and that it should therefore be deferred to another year. The street traders do not feel that they would be wise to wait for another year. I feel that this is the right opportunity to carry through this rather minor reform. The Clause does no more than meet the point of the original proposal. It also seems difficult to understand why the borough councils have not had time to consider it, because it was submitted to the


Parliamentary Agents of the promoters on 21st April.
Furthermore, up till a few days ago there has been no satisfactory assurance from the promoters or from the Standing Joint Committee that a serious attempt would be made to introduce reforms. The best that the street traders could get was a statement from the Parliamentary Agents of the L.C.C. to this effect:
Consideration, if desired, can be given to the Clause in connection with possible future legislation.
It is true that during the last ten days a more forthcoming assurance has been received from the London County Council, but this does not get the street traders very much further. If a new Clause is to be introduced into the L.C.C. (General Powers) Bill next year, it must be agreed by July. This is the time table followed by the L.C.C. Moreover, there is inevitably a feeling, at a time when London's local government is being reorganised, that in a year or two's time there may be much more important matters to deal with.
All in all, therefore, I feel that this minor Amendment should be accepted. I hope that I carry the House with me in this.

Dr. Barnett Stross: The hon. Member has given one reason why there is objection. Is he now going to give a second?

Mr. Charaway: Yes.

Dr. Stross: I am sorry.

Mr. Chataway: The second objection is that the introduction of this new Clause on Report introduces an undesirable principle. I do not know whether that was the point that the hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) had in mind. It is argued that it would be wrong for the promoters to be forced to accept a Clause that they do not want. It is argued that in Committee it is the invariable practice that if a Clause is amended in such a way that the promoters are no longer satisfied with it they are able to withdraw it. It is argued that that is impossible on Report. It is also contended that the introduction of a new Clause on Report means that the promoters and other

interests affected by the Bill have no opportunity of petitioning.
I do not claim to be an authority on these procedural matters, nor can I claim to look back over many years of Private Members' Bills, but I believe that those who object to the new Clause on this ground will cite the Bolton Corporation Bill of 1949 as an occasion when an attempt rather akin to this was thrown out by the House because it was felt undesirable that the promoters should have forced upon them on Report a Clause with which they were not satisfied. I suggest that that precedent deals with a very different case.
Without going into details, in its Bill of 1949 the Bolton Corporation sought authority to erect an hotel. Subsequently, brewers told the corporation that they wished to erect an hotel. The corporation was entirely happy with the suggestion and told the brewers that it would withdraw the Clause. In those circumstances the brewers did not petition against the Bill. It was against that background that, on Report, a Member nevertheless sought to recommit the Bill to the Committee with an Instruction that the original Clause be inserted.
In those circumstances, it was not surprising that the then Chairman of Ways and Means—Major Milner—had this to say:
I should inform the House that there would not appear to be any precedent for Amendments proposed by an hon. Member of this House which would force powers upon art unwilling promoter in breach of an understanding given in good faith."—[OFFICIAL REPORT. 4th May, 1949; Vol. 464, c. 1105.]
I suggest that there is no analogy between that case and this one. If there were such an analogy the Chairman of Ways and Means would presumably have seen fit to give advice to the House.

Dr. Stross: Does not the hon. Member agree that if the promoters wish to withdraw the Bill altogether this House ought not to have the power to prevent them? Surely, too, if they wish to withdraw a Clause the House should not prevent them. Is not the same principle involved here? The hon. Member is forcing upon the promoters a Clause the like of which they have already abandoned.

Mr. Chataway: In my view, it is the duty of the House of Commons to legislate as it sees fit. As I understand it, there are a number of precedents for forcing a promoter to accept a Clause that he would rather withdraw. I have not been able to carry out any extensive research into these instances, as I did not appreciate that this would be a major matter of consideration in the Bill, but I am aware of the London Midland and Scottish Act of 1935, where the promoters, who sought to rebuild Coventry station, were required to keep their Clause in the Bill although such conditions were imposed upon them that they would have preferred to withdraw it. It is certainly the case that a promoter can withdraw an entire Bill if he is dissatisfied with it. It is argued by some that a promoter should also have the right to withdraw a whole section if he is dissatisfied with its final shape, but I believe no one will contend that the promoter has the right to withdraw one Clause although there may be other Clauses dealing with the same subject. In this case Clause 25 is not the only Clause dealing with street traders. Clause 32 also deals with them and no application has been made by London County Council to withdraw Clause 32.

7.30 p.m.

Mr. Herbert Butler: If I understand the hon. Member's argument, he is proposing to introduce into this London County Council General Powers Bill an obligation on twenty-eight Metropolitan boroughs, and possibly the City Corporation, to do something which they do not want to do. Is the hon. Member suggesting that that should be within the province of this House?

Mr. Chataway: I certainly think that is within the province of this House. If this House requires Metropolitan borough councils, county councils, or any other councils to do anything, evidently the House has the power so to require. In this instance I am not pretending that my Clause would require borough councils to do something they did not wish to do. I believe that a number of them have not taken up sides on this issue. Very few have declared themselves on it.
I would not accept the suggestion that this is making a new imposition of any

importance on the borough councils. That is not the case. At the moment borough councils are required to give a licence to the first corner subject to a number of very minor exceptions. This proposed Clause would limit them no further. The relative who may apply within ten days could be refused a licence on exactly the same terms as a licence can be refused at the moment to any applicant.

Mr. Eric Fletcher: Will the hon. Member explain why the position should he different in London from that in the rest of the country? If street traders have a grievance, is it not desirable that the general law of the land should be changed so that there should be uniformity throughout the country? Is not that more a matter for public Bill legislation than for private Bill legislation?

Mr. Chataway: I am in no position to speak about street traders throughout the country, but I understand that the granting of licences to street traders is governed by private legislation I believe that London street traders are more strictly regulated, because of the London County Council General Powers Act, 1947, than street traders in a number of other parts of the country. It is quite wrong to argue that the L.C.C. or the borough councils have not had the opportunity to petition. Any party which objected to the ideas incorporated in this Clause could have petitioned after the Home Secretary's report upon which the Clause is modelled.
I therefore hope that the House will see fit to support this new Clause. If it does not there may be a number of years before any action is taken. In London a large number of street traders suddenly find themselves threatened by the law as it stands. Wives of street traders who have worked with their husbands for many years and regarded the business as a joint property face the possibility that if their husbands were to die tomorrow complete outsiders might be first at the town hail. Then they would lose their livelihood. That is the issue.

Dr. Stross: I have listened with great interest to the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway), who put his case well and very moderately.


The hon. Gentleman said that a question of principle is involved, which is that local authorities do not wish to see this new Clause imposed on them. Their declaration, I understand, is that in view of the past history of private legislation this would create a precedent. I do not wish to weary the House, but the Association of Municipal Corporations has made it very clear to some of us who are interested in that organisation that it would create an undesirable precedent because we are dealing not with public, but with private, legislation. All the precedents of the past have been against the imposition of a new Clause against the wishes of the promoters.
A predecessor of yours, Mr. Speaker, made observations on this matter in 1902, when he ruled that a Motion to recommit a Bill—the London United Electric Railway Bill—would be out of order on the ground that a Private Bill was the property of the promoters and that the House could not compel them to proceed with it against their wish. The reference is Erskine May, on page 993.
In a question, which the hon. Member answered most courteously, I put to him that what he is doing by attempting to force this new Clause on to the promoters does not differ in principle from forcing promoters to accept a Bill they wish to let go altogether and be rid of. When the hon. Member was replying to me I think that he said that the House has frequently forced conditions in a particular Clause and added to a Clause when it has been dealt with in Committee. Although the promoters did not want those conditions they were compelled to accept them. That is perfectly true, but if the promoters declare that they would do without the Clause entirely, as I read it, they would not have to accept the conditions when an attempt was made to impose them.

Mr. Chataway: I have had time now to glance at a note about the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Act, 1935. It was then the case that the railway company attempted to withdraw a Clause. The Committee decided that the Clause should be retained. That Clause became Section 4 of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Act, 1935.

Dr. Stross: There may be some point in that. The case I quoted from 1902 was quite clear and Mr. Speaker of that time ruled very definitely on the matter. I assure the hon. Member that London County Council is now raising objections against having to adopt this Clause on the whole question of principle and not on any detail.

Sir Barnett Janner: Unfortunately, my lips are rather sealed, because I happen to have acted in this matter and advised the people who are producing this new Clause. Having declared that fact, I want my hon. Friend to realise that, if I may say so with respect, he is talking entirely wrongly. I, too, am associated with the Association of Municipal Corporations. What principle is involved if there is an injustice which ought to be put right? Is there a principle that we must not use a procedure which is open to the House to put it right? That is the question.

Dr. Stross: I am discussing the whole of the principle. Now my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) says that the principle involved here is a matter of justice or injustice and that he has advised one of the parties in the matter. The Law Committee of the Association of Municipal Corporations has also looked at this matter very carefully. I am not a lawyer and my experience in medicine does not entitle me to quarrel with either my hon. Friend or with the Law Committee of that Association. Nor am I able to say which of them can give an opinion with the greater weight.
I have known my hon. Friend longer than I have known the Association and its Law Committee and, therefore, naturally, I am affectionately involved with my hon. Friend. Outside this Chamber I have no doubt that I shall have something else to say to him on this matter. I have pointed out, however, that the Association is rather nervous about the effect of this proposal on private Measures in future. The Association may be wrong in its fears, but it is my duty to express them as I have been asked to do.

Mr. Richard Marsh: It is impossible for us to have in mind all the precedents on this subject, but if it were shown to my hon. Friend that there was no strength in his case that this


constitutes a new precedent would his main objection to the proposed Clause vanish?

Dr. Stross: I believe that it would, but it may well be that the Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department will have taken advice on this matter and will give us his views. The highest advice on a matter of this kind, I should have thought, was Mr. Speaker's, if he would wish to advise us on the best way in which the House should be guided. But I have given the point of view which I have been asked to express. I have tried to do so as best I could and I shall listen with great interest to what is said further on the point.

Mr. Marsh: This is an important debate and the two parts of the argument have been very ably put forward by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). The first of the arguments is on the merits of the proposed Clause. There is great weight in the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Leicester, North-West (Sir B. Janner) that if an injustice is being perpetrated as a result of legislation the House has it within its power to right that injustice. In that event, I should have thought that the House would want to take any steps it possibly could to right the position.
One of the most interesting things is that there has been little argument about the merits of the proposed Clause. Most people believe that factors a rose which were unexpected and people now wish that there were slightly different methods of dealing with this problem.

Dr. Stross: If I may be allowed to intervene, in order to have it on the record I should like to quote one sentence from the paper I have in my hand. It reads:
This new Clause is not acceptable by the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee as they are not prepared to deal with the problems which confront them in the manner provided in it.
Therefore, there is another point.

Mr. Marsh: Again, with respect, that is not an argument about the treatment of the people who are involved in this Clause. The fact that the London County Council may find it inconvenient or may wish that the problem were dealt

with in some other way is one thing, but there is, first, the basic point whether the present procedure is satisfactory or not. I should have thought that there was a wide measure of agreement, as a result of the recent legal actions, that it is inadequate and unsatisfactory at present.
The first point is the position of the people involved, the street traders themselves. I will answer that briefly, because, clearly, it is not a big issue in this debate. To these people the site of the place where one places the barrow is of more value than the barrow itself. It is a good will, built up over a long period of time, and if a man cannot leave to his next-of-kin the ability to trade on that site, all he can leave is a barrow which is worth very little. Enormous hardship is imposed on these people when parents die and they are left with nothing because somebody else gets in first and the local authority is bound to give that person the site.

7.45 p.m.

Mr. H. Butler: I should like to know the authority upon which my hon. Friend bases the statement that a local authority granting licences to trade in the street markets has to apply the "first come, first served" principle and ignore any claims of relatives to take up the stall which the deceased trader had occupied. My experience is that consideration is always given to the relatives of those who have been trading. I should like my hon. Friend to give the authority whereby local authorities have to ignore that consideration.

Mr. Marsh: The whole point and the whole authority which has given rise to this Clause is the specific case of Schneider v. Stepney Borough Council.

Mr. Butler: How many?

Mr. Marsh: Do we judge injustice by the quantity? This seems an extraordinary doctrine whereby Parliament should decide whether a thing is just or unjust.

Mr. Chataway: Subsequent to the case of Stepney Borough Council v. Schneider it is obligatory on borough councils to give the Licence to the first corner. They are not in a position to consider whether or not the applicant is a relative.

Mr. Michael Cliffe: It seems to me that all sorts of statements are being made which are strictly not in accord with what local authorities do. The number of stalls selling each commodity is laid down and even if a man has been for years on the list of applicants it does not follow that when there is a vacancy he is considered. The schedule of stalls selling the commodity which he wishes to sell might be full. There is a discretionary power to the local authority to take the name at the top of the list of those wishing to sell the commodity which the previous occupant of the stall sold.

Mr. Marsh: I do not want to pursue this matter too far. This is a question of fact and presumably we shall have an intervention from the representative of the Home Office in due course and with customary skill he will be able to make the matter crystal clear to us. I am not a lawyer. I am not boasting, but that is my only claim to having led a decent life.
I understand that the whole of this controversy arises out of a specific case in which there was personal hardship to certain people. The intention of the promoters of the new Clause is to prevent that situation arising in future. As far as I know, there is no argument at all that what happened in the Schneider case was regretted and unforeseen, and most people would like to have at some stage a change in the law to provide that it cannot happen again. A curious feature of the matter is this. I should have expected petitions to be presented on these lines at an earlier stage, but this has not been done.
I do not want to labour the point, because there is not very much between everyone involved in this issue at this stage. In my view, it is right that security should be given to the dependants and near relatives of a street trader in the continuation of the family business. This is what we seek to establish. If it is argued that this is not the way to do it or that it cannot be done in this way, let us hear the argument. No such argument has, to my knowledge, yet been satisfactorily or clearly advanced.
The second question, which is the one which has aroused most of the feeling, is whether or not this House has a right to impose upon the promoters of a private Bill a Clause which they themselves do not like and may violently oppose. My hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) has said that what is proposed here would involve a new principle or new precedent. In the first place, I think that Parliament ought not to be very worried about introducing new precedents. We can do with quite a number of them. My hon. Friend said that he found this an undesirable precedent. I understand that there is already a precedent for this procedure. It occurred in 1935. As a result of a petition by the Coventry Corporation, the promoters of a Bill then were left with a Clause which they did not want, but which subsequently became Section 4 of the London, Midland and Scottish Railway Act, 1935.

Mr. H. Butler: Was what was done then right?

Mr. Marsh: We cannot have it both ways. We cannot start by saying we should not introduce a new precedent and then, when a previous precedent is produced, say, "Yes, but we do not want to continue precedents which we find inconvenient". One can have it one way or the other but, in all decency, one cannot have it both ways at the same time. If there is a precedent in 1935 for the procedure suggested here, then the argument based on precedent goes. This is not, in fact, creating a new precedent.
Is it desirable that Parliament should do what is proposed here? Clearly, everyone, whatever his interest, wants his rights to be protected as much as possible but, subject to constitutional convention—and if the precedent is already established there is no constitutional convention to break—the supremacy of Parliament in doing what it will must be defended. One cannot accept that, because the London County Council objects to Parliament doing something which the London County Council find unpleasant or inconvenient, Parliament, if convinced that a change is desirable, has no right to make it. Any hon. Member may object, but whether other


people like it or not is neither here nor there. For about 900 years Parliament has had the final say in these matters, and I hope that it will go on in that way for the next 900 years. It has worked very well so far. Perhaps that is not a very radical reason for supporting an argument, but I hope that it carries some weight.
I submit that what is suggested here does not introduce a new precedent, because there is already ample precedent for the promoters of a Private Bill being forced to accept something which they dislike. Secondly, even if the promoters of a Private Bill themselves wish to withdraw a Clause, having come to the conclusion that it no longer suits their interests and they no longer wish to be associated with it, they can withdraw it even then only by permission of the Committee. They have no right to carve up a Bill. They can withdraw the Bill in toto if they wish, but, while the Bill is in Committee, they can withdraw parts of it only with the permission of the Committee. There is, I suggest, ample precedent for the promoters of a private Bill being forced to accept provisions which they find undesirable.

Dr. Stross: Does my hon. Friend recall the Wallasey Corporation Bill in 1947? In that case, the promoters were given leave to withdraw a Clause in an omnibus Bill after the Clause had been amended by the Committee, in spite of the fact that the withdrawal was opposed by the petitioners against the Bill and the withdrawal was, apparently, against the inclination of the Committee which, nevertheless, felt unable to refuse?

Mr. Marsh: What my hon. Friend says supports my point. The petitioners can put forward their case and can object to the withdrawal of a Clause, and, if the Committee withholds its permission for the withdrawal of any Clause, the Committee carries the day. Parliament makes the decision. A private Bill or any other Bill is the property of Parliament while it is before Parliament, not the property of the promoters. Anything else would be a novel and very dangerous constitutional doctrine.
The arguments I put are these. First, I suggest that the merits of the case are generally accepted. If there is injus-

tice, as I understand is generally accepted——

Mr. H. Butler: Generally accepted by whom?

Mr. Marsh: Presumably, by those who have known about the proposed Clause for some time, have known about the Home Office recommendation, and have made no objection. One is entitled to assume that people who disagree violently with something while a Bill is in progress through the House will state their objections before Amendments are discussed on Report.
If, in fact, there is injustice—it is certainly very arguable that there is, even if it is not yet accepted by everyone—and if it is within our power to remedy the injustice, we should do so. I submit that what is proposed here creates no new precedent. The precedent in 1935 disposes of the argument about precedent in this case.
Thirdly, if it is argued that the rights of Parliament are circumscribed in relation to a Bill before it, as this Bill is, because there are people outside Parliament who have a prior interest in the Bill, then I strongly submit that that is a highly dangerous doctrine that it would be most dangerous to entertain.

Dr. Alan Glyn: For once, I find myself in agreement with the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh). The matter is really quite simple. It arises out of the very unfortunate legal decision in Stepney Borough Council v. Schnieder. All we seek to do by the new Clause is to rectify what I had assumed most people regarded as a very great wrong done to, admittedly, a minority of people. A street trader's business is very often run by the family, by the father, the son and the mother, with sometimes a close relative also taking part. It might be difficult to employ other people to run these businesses. They are extremely individual concerns more suitably run by families.
The proposed new Clause seeks to put right an obvious injustice. While I agree that it affects a minority of people and that certain interests in the councils do not want to see it adopted, that is no reason why we in Parliament should give up our right to be paramount on this


issue. After all, Parliament is paramount and if we think that this is going to cause inconvenience, difficulty and hardship to certain local authorities I do not see that that is any reason why we should not agree to accept the Clause and bring justice to a small section of the community who, by virtue of an unfortunate legal decision—and that is all it was—should suffer this injustice.

8.0 p.m.

Mrs. Freda Corbet: I speak tonight on behalf of the L.C.C., which is promoting the Bill, and it does so partly in respect of the council's needs and partly in respect of the needs of others.
The original Clause in the Bill was promoted to suit not only the needs of the metropolitan borough councils but also those of the street traders. It was proceeded with entirely on the understanding that there was complete agreement between all the parties concerned. Had there not been that agreement the original Clause would not have been in the Bill and the House would probably not have considered it proper to have inserted one along the same lines. The precedents would appear to bear that out.
But whether or not precedent declares that the House cannot accept the proposed new Clause is somewhat immaterial. The main point surely is whether the House should make the change proposed by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway). In any case, the precedents would appear to be doubtful. The case quoted by the hon. Member for Lewisham, North does not alter the position and the attention of the House should be called to the fact that the Select Committee, after examining the original Clause, decided on its retention.
The proposed new Clause, on the other hand, has had no examination. it was not possible for a petition to be put against it, since the last date for petitions was 30th January. The Secretary of State's Report appeared on 12th March so that it has been impossible for the situation to be examined in detail by the Select Committee. If the proposed new Clause were inserted it would mean that that had been done without any serious consideration having been given to it by

the Select Committee and without hon. Members knowing whether it would stand up to thorough investigation.
It has been said that not much attention has been given to the merits of the Clause as originally drafted. I would make it clear that the Metropolitan borough councils, on whose behalf the L.C.C. is operating, and the street traders were in complete agreement about the injustices suffered by the relatives of street traders and were anxious to cure them. At the same time, the Standing Joint Committee of the Metropolitan borough councils felt that the whole situation was unsatisfactory and that if it was to promote a Clause at all the whole problem would have to be cleared up in one go. The Metropolitan borough councils thought, first and foremost, that the position was unsatisfactory if the law insisted on them being nothing more than rubber stamps. They did not want that to happen. They did not want their position regarding the allocation of pitches to be different from that concerning the letting of shops on housing estates. They wanted complete discretion to allocate pitches in the interests of all concerned.
When the matter was debated in February great stress was placed on the amount of so-called fiddling that took place in the sale of pitches. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North strongly objected to that practice and he should realise that his proposed new Clause would not deal with that problem. The borough councils are anxious to deal with it and have given an undertaking that the position of the dependants of deceased traders will be properly considered. The view of the councils on this matter has been explained on numerous occasions and there should not now be any misunderstanding about their attitude.
As I have said, the whole thing was done on a basis of agreement. It was following the earlier debate in the House and the Secretary of State's decision that it was not desirable to give complete discretion to the borough councils that the street traders objected to the original Clause. It would appear that they objected to the fact that a certain limited right of appeal would be foregone. In other words, regarding the allocation of new pitches, there would be no right of


appeal to the magistrates. This is something on which the borough councils have strong feelings. They spend many hours carefully selecting the right applicant only to be over-ruled by a magistrate who has before him only two persons—the grantee of the licence and the aggrieved applicant—whereas the borough council probably has a large number of applicants from whom to select one.
It is for these reasons that the borough councils object to the proposed new Clause which would deal only with the hardship of the deceased's dependants and not with the whole situation. It is essential to clear up all the problems including those involved by redevelopment—and this was gone into in great detail by my hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) on a previous occasion—in one fell swoop. There are other problems, too, such as the provision of better positions for existing street traders so that might have better pitches.

Mr. Chataway: I entirely agree that the proposed new Clause is not sufficient and that further reforms would be necessary. Is that a reason for throwing out a small reform; because it is not a large one? Is there anything wrong with this small one?

Mrs. Corbet: The Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee is not sure if a change in the law would ever come about if the proposed new Clause went through. The Committee has offered to give an undertaking that it will immediately pursue arrangements by which a new Clause could, by agreement, go into next year's Bill. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North gave the House to understand that it would not be possible because of the date, July, by which the L.C.C. would have to consider the terms of such a new Clause. To some extent he is right, but it is possible to suspend the Standing Orders of the L.C.C. That is frequently done and would be a satisfactory way of overcoming this difficulty if the terms could be agreed by October. The Metropolitan borough councils are very anxious that the matter should be settled properly. I appeal to the House to accept not the new Clause but the undertaking given by the bodies concerned that they

will endeavour to get agreed legislation promoted at the next opportunity.
While I have not overstressed the precedent, some of us feel that it is very unfortunate that a promoter should have legislation to which he is opposed forced upon him.
In this case the Metropolitan borough councils, although they wanted legislation, received representations from the street traders before they embarked on it, and they did this at the instance of the street traders. Surely it is reasonable to apprehend that if anyone who wishes to promote legislation has reason to believe that, by doing so, he will have forced on him legislation of a kind which he does not feel he can accept he will be rather laggard in undertaking legislation. The House would be wise to keep to the principle that, if promoters desire legislation and then find that it is not possible to have it more or less as they require it, the option to decide Whether they should proceed with it should be left with them.

Mr. H. Butler: I wish to deal first with the very important point raised by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross). If the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) feels that the Government should have power to instruct the Metropolitan boroughs on how they should operate street markets, surely the Government should introduce legislation to that effect. The L.C.C. has put forward a general powers Bill embodying all sorts of things, including a request from the street traders to take certain decisions arising out of a court decision. The L.C.C. decided to put Clause 25 in the Bill. My hon. Friend the Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) made a powerful case with which I entirely disagreed, but nevertheless it was reasonable and it stood up to examination. However, eventually he agreed to withdraw his opposition to the Clause in order that it should be re-examined.
What happened? As I understand it, one of my hon. Friends said that he legally advised the street traders in this matter. If so, and if they were wrong, I do not complain.

Mr. Chataway: In fairness to the hon. Member concerned, the hon. Gentleman is referring to a previous occasion.

Mr. Butler: Then I must have misunderstood my hon. Friend's intervention, but, as I understand it, the street traders were advised and proceeded on certain lines.
8.15 p.m.
In the previous debate, I said that if I were given the job of examining applications for street trading licences—and I was a member of the local authority far nearly forty years—I should feel that I was competent to decide the people who should get them, having regard to the number of people who sold bananas, nylon stockings and even linoleum and having regard to the public requirements. I thought that to allow a Metropolitan magistrate to decide such a matter was entirely wrong. If I were a member of a local authority and if that were the law, I should have said to the Government, which I believe many Metropolitan borough councils did, "If you regard me as a rubber stamp, then you get on with the job".
We have a very big market in Ridley Road in my constituency, and I pay tribute to the people who stand out in all weathers selling all sorts of goods. My hon. Friend the Member for Deptford (Sir L. Plummer) on a previous occasion did not say that they were altruistic. They like to make a profit, like everyone else, but they lead a hard life. However, someone must regulate the situation.
The new Clause says that when a street trader dies the pitch must automatically be transferred to his relatives, even if they are illegitimate. Hon. Members must learn the facts of life. Street trading is not confined to families who live in a particular area. Street traders travel from London to Southend, Wick-ford, Billericay and Romford. It is fantasy to believe that old-established families stay in one market all the time. How do hon. Members think that Petticoat Lane, Middlesex Street, is made up?
Street trading is a legitimate form of trading which adds colour to London's life, but it is wrong to believe that the wife of a street trader who has died is scared about getting a living. Many traders have to stop trading because they are sick. This new Clause does not deal with them. Sometimes a man cannot put his stall out and do business because

he has contracted a disease, and the local authority must decide what should be done in his case. This new Clause does not deal with such a man. He may be away from his stall for three or four months, and the street markets committee must decide what should be done with his pitch.
If hon. Members assume that ordinary people who live in the area concerned do not know the difficulties which arise when a street trader dies, then they are living in a world of fantasy which has no relation to fact. Members of the street market committees know the people with whom they are concerned. They know the people who occupy the stalls.

Mr. Chataway: Mr. Chataway indicated dissent.

Mr. Butler: The hon. Gentleman shakes his head. At eleven o'clock this morning, after I had been sitting on the bench, I consulted the town clerk in my area about whether the committee considered passing the licence of a deceased person on to the relatives of the deceased.

Mr. Chataway: What does the hon. Gentleman think that the decision in the Schneider v. Stepney Borough Council case meant if it did not mean that the "first come, first served" rule does not apply?

Mr. Butler: I am privileged in this House, and I think that the man who made the decision in that case did not know what he was talking about.

Mr. Marsh: Assuming for the sake of argument that what my hon. Friend says is correct, has not the decision of the magistrate in that case, however ill-advised, had the practical effect of deciding the situation?

Mr. Butler: I have no aspirations to be on the Front Bench, but if I am not very careful I shall get a reputation for loquacity. I do not want that. The House will remember that my hon. Friend the Member for Stepney took a certain view about this matter, and I do not want to put into his mouth again the views which he then took. The decision in the Schneider case laid down a certain course of action, and all I am saying is that if both hon. Gentlemen examine what goes on in the 28 Metropolitan boroughs they will find that the


Schneider decision has not influenced the Committees in any way.

Mr. Fletcher: Am I not right in thinking that the decision in the Schneider case was the decision of a Divisional Court and that therefore it is the law of the land and binding on all local authorities and magistrates? It is because we all agree with the hon. Member that the decision is unfortunate and regrettable that we want the law of the land changed.

Mr. Butler: I should get into real trouble if I were to start arguing with lawyers. All I am saying is that, in regard to the local authority with which I have been connected for a considerable number of years—and I have been connected with the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee for a number of years—and as far as my own experience tells me, together with the knowledge which I have gained only today, the Metropolitan boroughs themselves are not in the position with regard to this matter which apparently the hon. Gentlemen who are supporting this Clause seem to think. Therefore, I hope that the two hon. Members will not press this matter to a Division.
I am sure that a very important Bill like this London County Council Bill, which involves so many important items, should not be delayed upon a matter which can be dealt with by the Metropolitan borough councils themselves, without getting involved in this controversy. I would also include the hon. Member for Clapham (Dr. A. Glyn), who comes here on Fridays to make contributions to various subjects, but who, in this case, does not know anything about the subject at all. I hope he will not try to impress this House with the story of this terrible widow or somebody who diedx2014;—

Dr. Glyn: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that today is Tuesday and not Friday?

Mr. Butler: That is why I am surprised that the hon. Gentleman is here.
I hope that my hon. Friend will not press this Clause but will let the Bill proceed to do the job which we think it ought to do.

Mr. Fletcher: Unlike my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. H. Butler), I hope that those who put down this Motion will press it to a Division. It seems to me to be essentially a matter on which this House should express an opinion, whichever way the vote may go. I think it raises a very interesting and very important constitutional question, and a vital question of Parliamentary procedure, on which the House should come to a conclusion.
I listened with great care to the speeches of both my hon. Friends—the hon. Lady the Member for Peckham (Mrs. Corbet) and the hon. Member for Hackney, Central, and I think that it is important to keep the salient facts in the issue clearly before us. Whatever we may think of the decision in the Schneider case, surely it cannot be the fact, as one hon. Member said, that local authorities and magistrates will ignore it.
It may well be that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) knows much more than a great many of us about what the practice of issuing of licences has been in the past, but the serious matter that has arisen is that, by the decision of the Divisional Court in the Schneider case, local authorities are no longer entitled to go on doing what they have been doing, quite sensibly, no doubt, but in future must act upon the principle of "first come, first served". Therefore, they no longer have any freedom——

Mr. H. Butler: When my hon. Friend says "first come, first served" what does he mean? Does he mean that somebody walks in to the town hall at ten minutes past nine and says, "I am first"? Is that what my hon. Friend means? If so, it would not be much use, because there is no one there until half-past nine.

Mr. Fletcher: That may well go to show the absurdity of the situation. Because hon. Members who put down this Motion are so impressed with the absurdity of the situation they want it changed. In a sense, as the hon. Member said, it is only a minor change and deals with one aspect of the whole subject of the granting of licences for street trading.
The burden of the argument of my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central, who put the views of the London County Council and the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee, was that, ideally, there should be some other Clause and that this Clause does not deal with the whole problem. If there were plenty of time, we could have further consultations and draw up a code for the benefit of the metropolitan boroughs stating how street trading licences should be granted in the future. That might be a sensible thing to say, but I do not consider it a valid argument for opposing this Clause, the whole purpose of which is to correct, either temporarily or permanently, what, in the Schneider case, has been revealed as a patent injustice.
There is nothing whatever to prevent the London County Council, or the Government, from passing further legislation in the future. I cannot believe that the acceptance today of this Clause and its inclusion in the London County Council (General Powers) Bill will in any way inhibit the Council from introducing a wider measure in a General Powers Bill next year to deal with the whole subject, or prevent the Government, if they desire to do so, from legislating through the Home Office, with regard to street trading in the country. I still do not understand why there should be one law on this matter for London and, presumably, a different law for other parts of the country. On that aspect, on the merits of the case, I am wholeheartedly in favour of the Clause. It seems to me that all the arguments on merit lead in that direction.
As was pointed out by my hon. Friend the Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) there is an equally vital issue regarding precedent and principle. We should be clear about this. It is one thing to talk about precedent and another to talk about principle. I also have had communications from the Association of Municipal Corporations, of which I am a vice-president, and to whose representations I always listen with respect. But on the issue of precedent it was suggested by one of my hon. Friends that this is a matter with which Parliament could not deal. But surely that argument must be resisted at the outset.
If this Clause were not in order, we should not be having this debate. Therefore, there can be no doubt about the matter. It seems a platitude to say that this House is competent to insist, if it wishes, on this Clause being inserted in the Bill. That is the case, as my hon. Friend the Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) observed, whether there are precedents or not.
Now let us come to the question of principle. This is a very important matter and it ought to be fully analysed. It is said that if a Bill is promoted this House ought not, as a matter of principle, to insert in it some Clause to which the promoters object. But I cannot accept that doctrine for a moment. Were it accepted, or even thought to be accepted, it would undermine completely the sovereign authority of Parliament. Let us remind the London County Council, and all municipal authorities, that they are the creatures of Parliament.
8.30 p.m.
They are subordinate bodies which very often have duties thrust on them whether they like it or not. They can be abolished by this House. In fact, some of them are to be abolished whether they like it or not. Their powers and duties can be changed by this House. It is, therefore, not for any local authority—not even the London County Council, and certainly not the metropolitan borough councils—to have the final say as to what it wants to do or what should be the law of the land. That is the duty of this House, and it is one of the functions of this House to cure injustices.

Mr. H. Butler: Does my hon. Friend consider that a Private Bill, or a Bill promoted by the London County Council, should be the measure by which further powers should be either taken away from, or forced upon, the Metropolitan boroughs?

Mr. Fletcher: I will deal with that point, because it is important. It is important to observe this. In some respects Private Bills promoted by local authorities stand in a different category from Private Bills promoted by other persons or undertakers or individuals, and this distinction should be borne in mind.
It may well be the case that in respect of certain Private Bill promoted for some purely minor local interest it would be unreasonable—and Parliament would not dream of doing it—to insert in a Bill something contrary to what the promoters wanted, and, of course, in that case the promoters would have their remedy because they could withdraw the Bill.
The position of local authorities, and particularly the London County Council is slightly different. It is not quite true to say of them that they need not promote a Bill, and that they can withdraw a Bill, because experience shows that if the London County Council is to carry out responsibly the statutory functions imposed on it by Parliament it has, as a matter of course year by year to ask Parliament to give it certain additional powers to do various additional things which have arisen as a result of experience over the years.
Therefore, it is right to observe that one cannot, in fairness, say to the London County Council, "If you do not like this new Clause"—which I hope Parliament will insist on being inserted in the Bill—"you can withdraw the Bill", because the County Council might then sensibly say that to do that would be acting irresponsibly and would be depriving it, and through it the people of London, of certain powers given in other Clauses of the Bill which are for the general interest.
But that does not conclude the matter. The fact that the London County Council has not that right, which other promoters might have, of withdrawing the Bill, does not conclude the matter. That is no reason why Parliament should not insist, if it wants to, on inserting a Clause to cure injustices, and for this reason. Local authorities promote Bills which they think are in the interests of the public. Parliament revises, amends, considers and either approves or disapproves those Bills because Parliament has the final say as to whether those Clauses are requisite for the protection of the public or not.
Parliament also has the right to say to any local authority—and amendments have been moved to the City Corporation Bills to this effect—" Parliament will not give you the powers which you are seeking in your General Powers Bill

unless you also take steps to do things which Parliament thinks you ought to do for the protection of the public in other respects, including such respects as curing an obvious injustice".
That seems to me the issue of principle, that Parliament must assert its right in a General Powers Bill promoted by a local authority to insist on a Clause being inserted if Parliament thinks it is necessary to insert it to cure an injustice. This seems to me additionally important in a sphere in which the promoters of the Bill have themselves, in their original Bill, recognised that this is a branch of the law which requires some amendment.
It may well be that this year they could not get the agreement which ideally they would have liked, and they may be able to get it next year let us hope that they will—but that cannot be a reason for their asking Parliament to resist this minor, modest Measure which we think is urgently necessary to remove an admitted injustice which has been revealed by a decision of the Divisional Court. I therefore hope that the House will support the new Clause.

Mr. Walter Edwards: I made my position clear during the Second Reading debate in February on the London County Council (General Powers) Bill, but I want to correct some of the statements made by hon. Gentlemen opposite about the case of the Stepney Borough Council v. Schneider. I think that those who have listened to the debate will have got the impression that what was being asked for today was something which was being done in the 28 Metropolitan boroughs before the Divisional Court gave its decision in the case to which I have just referred. This is not so. This is something which is brand new in street trading legislation. If there had been no Stepney Borough Council case, the relatives of street traders would be in the same position as they were before this decision was taken.
Let me repeat what I said during the Second Reading debate. The Stepney Borough Council dealt with this problem by withholding the granting of a new licence once it knew that the street trader had passed away. I want to make it clear that this is something new.

Mr. Marsh: Is not my hon. Friend saying that the Stepney Borough Council case revealed a facet of the law not known before and that the local authorities are now able to get round the law by this device?

Mr. Edwards: I do not want to repeat my Second Reading speech, when I referred to this. Not all the boroughs were involved, but the Metropolitan boroughs had the impression that they had to go through a list, sometimes of 100 or 200 people. In many cases there were 40 or 50 people from Petticoat Lane. Occasionally one found that the aggrieved applicant would go to the police court and that the magistrate would decide that a wrong decision had been taken and that it should have been made in favour of the applicant. Stepney did not like the idea of traders being able to go to the magistrates' court and to obtain a decision contrary to that of the borough council. Because they wanted the law clear, the matter was taken to the Divisional Court. But that decision took nothing away. We have applied the Divisional Court ruling in Stepney. I am sure that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) has had no case from Stepney in which the relatives of the deceased trader have been den6ed the licence.

Mr. Chataway: But would many people say that this is because the Stepney Borough Council is behaving illegally? I am glad that they are, but they are ignoring this Schneider case.

Mr. Edwards: Stepney Borough Council is not behaving illegally. This judgment does not mean that the applicant who puts in his application at 9.5 a.m. or 9.35 a.m. must be successful. The Stepney Borough Council has decided—and I think that it is within the law in so deciding—that the pitch is not vacant until the Council declares it vacant.
A pitch is not vacant until the Stepney Borough Council declares it vacant. After all, the council is responsible for the upkeep of the street and is entitled to rights in regard to the letting of market pitches. Once the Stepney Borough Council declares a pitch vacant, however, the council can offer it to the relative of the deceased trader.
That is how we have overcome the situation. I do not think that we are breaking the law. We are not using any device. No law states that a local authority must meet on a day when a pitch becomes vacant and decide that day who is to have it. It is necessary to wait until such time as the appropriate committee is able to meet and the officials of the council have been able to send out to members of the council all the details in connection with these cases.
The hon. Member for Lewisham, North is asking for something completely different which has no connection whatever with the Stepney Borough Council and the Schneider case. I have every sympathy with genuine street traders' relatives who are dependent upon having the pitch, but I must not say too much because I feel that some of them are not really genuine. The vast majority may be. Nevertheless, I have the greatest sympathy and I am pleased that there is no complaint against the Stepney Borough Council since the Divisional Court ruling with regard to the granting of licences to these persons.
The hon. Member for Lewisham, North must have undertaken a lot of research with my hon. Friend who is dealing with the case legally. We can rest assured that my hon. Friend would know of every case which existed, but there have been only four since the Divisional Court ruling.
I wonder whether there really is the great injustice which has been mentioned and whether some hon. Members appreciate that it is necessary to have people serving on local authorities. It is all very nice to get up in this House and to say that Parliament is paramount and can tell the local authorities what to do, but how would the country carry on but for the people who serve on local authorities?
8.45 p.m.
Parliament itself could not run it, and if Parliament, by legislation of this description, which forces upon a responsible authority Clauses which it does not consider desirable at this moment, Parliament will not stand in a very good position in the general picture of our democratic institution. I have served on a local authority for a long time. If I am to be told by my hon. Friend the Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher)


exactly what I have to do when I belong to a council, he can go on it instead of me.

Mr. Fletcher: Is my hon. Friend suggesting that Parliament should never impose any duties on local authorities unless they are first accepted by local authorities?

Mr. Edwards: I am not suggesting anything of the sort. Like my hon. Friend the Member for Hackney, Central (Mr. H. Butler), I do not belong to the legal profession and I am not going to answer legal questions. All I say, quite plainly, is that I am sure that most people who serve on local authorities feel that Parliament should interfere with them only if it is found that they are lacking in their duty. There is no such lacking in duty on the part of the London County Council. The London County Council brought a proposal forward at the request of the Street Traders' Union, but the street traders afterwards said that they did not want what was proposed but wanted a new Clause.
Is Parliament to act in that way with all local authority general powers Bills? If so, what is the good of bringing them forward? Hon. Members have a right to say that they do not want a certain Clause, but if Parliament is to mess about with local authority general powers Bills in the way that the hon. Member for Lewisham, North is trying to do, it will be very difficult for local authorities to carry out their job properly.
The hon. Member has overstated his case. There is very little suffering. All that is required is a little common sense on the part of local authorities with regard to the administration of their markets committees, and then hardly anybody would suffer. But here we have a fundamental issue. If Parliament is to tell London County Council, Manchester City Council and Liverpool City Council that they must administer their markets committees in the way Parliament wants, where will it end? Will Parliament next say "You must carry out your housing allocations as we want you to"? Parliament has not told the London County Council that Mr. A. or Mr. B. must be given accommodation.

Mr. Fletcher: Parliament has given the relatives of deceased tenants certain

rights which are binding on all local authorities.

Mr. Edwards: Parliament has done that to a certain extent, but there is an end to that situation. There is no end to this one. The provision in this case is not confined to close relatives—widow, daughter or son. It goes on for ever. Once the pitch is let, on reallocation as a result of a death in a family, the local authority has no more control over it. Must local authorities work under these conditions? It is hard enough now to get good people to give up their time to serve on local authorities. But if this is the way in which members of the London County Council are to be treated, I fear that the quality of its membership will suffer as a result.
It is for these reasons that I feel that the request of my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham (Mrs. Corbet) should be met. The hon. Member for Lewisham, North mentioned four cases in two years. I wonder how many cases of this so-called grave injustice will happen in the next six months. Could this matter not be dealt with as it was last year? Then, the London County Council met the street traders and the Standing Joint Committee and all those interested. It would be far better to accept the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Peckham that the matter should be reconsidered so that the Council, in its general powers Bill next year, could come forward with something acceptable to all the local authorities.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for the Home Department (Mr. Charles Fletcher-Cooke): We have enjoyed the debate, particularly the defence made by the hon. Member for Stepney (Mr. W. Edwards) of his local authority. He gave an interesting description of the benevolent interpretation of the Schneider case that is adopted in Stepney. Nevertheless, I think that he would agree that maybe some of the other metropolitan boroughs do not adopt such a benevolent construction, and, also, that there is, at the very least, some confusion and vagueness about the rights and duties of the metropolitan boroughs in this matter since the Schneider decision.
It seems, from the careful, moderate and persuasive speech of my hon. Friend


the Member for Lewisham, North (Mr. Chataway) that in some boroughs, at any rate, the view that he who gets to the town hall first gets the pitch is the one that is adopted, and that the ability to sprint—not merely the ability to run a mile or three miles—is an essential if one is to get hold of one of these sites, which are extremely valuable, as the hon. Member for Greenwich (Mr. Marsh) showed.
It is obviously an unsatisfactory position, as we indicated, and, indeed, as the London County Council has very fairly indicated in its statement which we have all had. I think that, on the merits, the general consensus of the debate must be to support what the L.C.C. says about the effect of the Schneider decision. It says that the decision led to an undesirable position whereby traders intending to give up pitches could obtain substantial sums of money for telling would be licensees the exact time when they would be notifying the Metropolitan borough council of their intention.
One can imagine all sorts of dodges which this decision might lead to. Certainly, the hon. Lady, who speaks with such authority for the L.C.C., never for one moment attempted to defend the consequences of the Schneider decision and the injustice which will continue from day-to-day so long as the decision remains. We have to bear that in mind when we are urged to let this run for another year, because it would mean that during the course of the year, or whatever the period may be, at least in many boroughs that take a rather more rigid view of the Schneider position than perhaps Stepney does, this injustice might continue and that the families of deceased traders would be denied the goodwill of a very valuable site.
Having said that, I will attempt to summarise the view which has been put best by the hon. Lady against accepting this new Clause put forward by my hon. Friend. It is said that precedents are against imposing upon the promoters something which they do not want in the case of Private Bills. The hon. Member for Stoke-on-Trent, Central (Dr. Stross) invited me, as speaking on behalf of the Home Office, to give the House some guidance on this question. I cannot accept that flattering invitation. The procedure of the House in these matters

is not really within the office of the Home Office. The Home Office is, of course, a mighty mother, but it is not quite as mighty as that. The procedure of the House is really in the charge of this House and this House alone. In so far as there are precedents, that must be a matter for you, Mr. Speaker, rather than the Home Secretary.
All that I can say about it is that we certainly accede to the view that there is a strong tendency, to put it no higher, against imposing on the promoters of Private Bills Clauses and conditions to which they strongly object. Therefore, it is a very difficult balance that the House must decide tonight, and it is one which it would not be proper, in view of this difficult and delicate balance, for anyone speaking at this Box to attempt to dictate. If the merits of the case were in dispute, that is to say, if the London County Council strongly objected to the substance of this Clause altogether, I think that the scales would overwhelmingly come down on the side of rejecting the Clause, since this is private legislation. But that, of course, is not the position. The substance of the case is conceded by the London County Council. It is a procedural objection by the Council.
Owing perhaps to the unfortunate history of the matter, it was not until a fairly late stage that this Clause was drafted in proper shape. As the hon. Member for Peckham (Mrs. Corbet) so rightly said, the Committee has not examined the Clause. It has come here now at this relatively late stage. That is true. But I have to remind the House that no one in this debate has criticised the drafting of this Clause or anything about it. I have to tell the House that so far as the Home Office examination of the Clause is concerned, we think that it is in proper form, fit for its purpose, adequately safeguarded, with all the definitions of the word "relative" and matters of that sort in proper order, and, therefore, there can be no objection to it from the drafting point of view and no one has attempted to say that it is in any way inept.
The hon. Member for Peckham says that it does not go far enough. That may well be true, but I must remind the House that there is no objection to either private or public legislation going further at any time it chooses, and, therefore,


the force of that argument is somewhat diminished. Concerning public legislation, the hon. Member for Islington, East (Mr. Fletcher) asked why this was done piecemeal and only for London, and why there was no governmental move in these matters.
My answer is that street trading is governed by a host of local Acts and the Government have never considered that it is their task to harmonise those Acts beyond certain basic considerations of natural justice. It would be a task which I do not think the country, the traders themselves, or the localities would wish us to undertake. This must be a matter for the local authorities, particularly for the Metropolitan boroughs.
Therefore, I fully recognise the desirability of getting the agreement of the Metropolitan Boroughs Standing Joint Committee in the way that it has not yet, unfortunately, been obtained. Whether that consideration, that constitutional propriety, should be considered sufficiently weighty to outweigh the undoubted merits of the Clause, which may, in the course of the next year or so, remedy what might otherwise cause serious injustice to an important band of the commercial community in this city, is a matter which the House must decide.
Are we to preserve, on the one side, the purity of the constitutional steps at all costs, even though the merits and the substance of the matter are agreed on all sides, or virtually agreed, or are we to take a plunge, a dramatic plunge, and say that this is what we want and what everybody wants? This Clause may not go as far as it might, but it goes a long way. The House must decide and I can say no more.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: Like the Under-Secretary, I think that our better course at this stage is to accept the Clause. I do not often disagree with the London County Council, which is an excellent authority, and, far reasons which I shall show, I think that it has been very hard done by in this matter. I am influenced by what the result will be if we accept or reject the Clause.
If we reject it, we leave the situation with regard to street traders as it is as a result of the decision in the case of

Stepney v. Schneider. There is no doubt what that decision means. It means that when a site is vacant the first person who applies for it has a legal right to it. I must congratulate Stepney Borough Council on the way it has handled that decision. But if a site in Stepney becomes vacant, say, through the death of the stall-holder, or through his notifying the council that he is giving it up, and within ten minutes of that vacancy occurring an application is made and half an hour later another application is made by a relative and the Stepney Borough Council, meeting a week later to consider the two applications, gives the licence to the relative, on the argument that the vacancy had not occurred until the committee began to meet, and if it chooses to regard the relative's application as prior in time, if the other applicant then goes to the court, although I am not a lawyer, I will bet that the result will unquestionably be that the other applicant will get it.
The extraordinary thing is that nobody wants that situation. The Metropolitan brough councils, quite rightly, dislike it because it turns them into rubber stamps. It does not make sense, and it is a shockingly arbitrary rule. The street traders do not like it because, apart from anything else, it rules out the claim which the relative has in natural justice. Everybody thinks that the position is unsatisfactory, but that is the position which we perpetuate if we do not adopt the Clause.
On the other hand, if we adopt it, there is only a slight improvement. The Clause operates only in the case of the death of the stall-holder. If the stall-holder is permanently disabled, Stepney v. Schneider still operates.

Mr. Chataway: If the stall-holder is permanently disabled, he can determine the moment at which he will hand in his licence and therefore enable his relative to get the licence.

Mr. Stewart: But what is to prevent him in that situation from selling the information as to when he will notify the vacancy to the borough council as, it is alleged, some do now?

Mr. Chataway: He does not want to.

Mr. Stewart: I thought that part of the objection to the present situation


was that the stall-holder could do that very thing—sell the information. The only way in which he is stopped from doing that is by his being obliging enough to die. This does not give certain protection in the event of that possibility, or in what is perhaps the more usual case, where a man reaches an age at which he feels that he can no longer carry one. This provision is not a very great improvement, but it is some improvement on the present situation, which is so profoundly unsatisfactory, and I feel that we ought to accept it.
In the course of putting forward what I believe to be the right answer to the question I shall explain what I meant when I said that the L.C.C. has been hard done by. The right answer is to give borough councils a discretion in the matter. This ought to be a matter within their discretion. It is the kind of matter that their representatives are elected to judge. It is not the kind of matter which magistrates are elected to judge.

Mrs. Corbet: If my hon. Friend believes that borough councils should have this discretion, should he not hesitate to agree to a Clause which will fetter borough councils even more than does the Schneider decision? The whole object of the original Clause was to leave out from the Bill all these considerations. All this was to be worked out between the Metropolitan boroughs and the street traders. None of these categories was to be mentioned in the Bill. The Metropolitan boroughs will have all the facts before them. In these days, when so many people travel by motor car, it may easily happen that although a husband has nominated his wife to succeed him both he and his wife are killed in the same motor accident. What provision is made then? A number of similar cases could be referred to. I hope that my hon. Friend wild not be carried away by the appearance of the Clause but will look at the solid substance underneath.

Mr. Stewart: I share my hon. Friend's admiration for the original Clause, but unfortunately it is no longer before us. If the Bill goes forward, with or without the Clause, the discretion of borough

councils will be hopelessly fettered. We cannot get away from that.
The right answer is to provide that this matter should be within the decretion of borough councils, provided that, in natural justice, in exercising that discretion they should have regard to the claims of relatives. That is what the L.C.C. sought to do, and that is why I say that it has been hard done by. It reached agreement with the Federation of Street Traders in the matter, and it is a little feeble for the federation to say, "We did not realise that there is nothing in the provision about an appeal to the magistrates' court". One does not have to be an expert lawyer to observe whether a provision of that kind is in a Clause. I am sure that the federation is not composed of innocents who are likely to be misled by any complications of drafting.
The L.C.C. sought to arrive at this solution, but it has been unable to do so, through no fault of its own, but through the ineptitude of the federation and what I regard as the unsatisfactory comments of the Home Office, which waded in and said that it did not approve of the idea of giving discretion to borough councils. We are now in the unhappy dilemma when no choice is the right answer before us, and we have to choose which, on the whole, seems to be the better of two rather unsatisfactory situations.
Since what the L.C.C. sought—namely, the absolute discretion of borough councils, subject to an undertaking to respect the rights of relatives—is not possible, and since the Government have pronounced against it, cannot we say that the right answer is probably to bring in a statute giving discretion to borough councils, subject to certain clearly laid down exceptions, one of which would refer to the rights of relatives.
There are plenty of parallels to that in statutes where Ministers, local authorities and other bodies are given the right to decide certain things but are required by statute when making a decision to take certain things into account. If they fail to take them into account their decision can be challenged in the courts. I still think that the simplest way to have got that would have been to give in law absolute discretion to the local authority on a clear understanding that


it would act in the way in which the L.C.C. said it would act. Since that course is not to be followed by the Government, would not the right thing be to have a Clause giving discretion to borough councils subject to certain limitations which could be agreed between the local authorities and street traders?
That would be the right answer. Is it absolutely too late to get that into the Bill? This Bill has to go to another place. The procedure on Private Bill legislation is something which I think I may say without fear of contradiction only a few of us are expert about unless we have taken the precaution of looking up the particular points during the previous hour or so. I therefore took the precaution of ascertaining that there is no technical impassibility of having this Bill amended in another place, although of course such an Amendment, as in the case of any Bill, would have to return to this House for approval.
I am told, and I am quite willing to accept it, that it may be a somewhat lengthy process to get agreement of the Metropolitan boroughs, the L.C.C. and the Federation of Street Traders, but is it absolutely impossible? Could not the Government lend a hand in trying to bring the parties together and possibly even suggest the form of Amendment which would get the right result? I think the. Home Office has some responsibility in this matter, because it was its remarks, adverse to the L.C.C.'s original Clause, which helped to produce this situation.

Mr. Marsh: Is there anything in the Amendment my hon. Friend is suggesting which could be objectionable to an extent that it could not possibly wait until next year rather than rush it through by an Amendment to this Bill?

Mr. Stewart: I do not see why it should be impossible to get an agreed Amendment before the Bill finishes its course in another place. I think that would be the best solution. If it is impossible to agree on the Amendment I accept that we would have to wait another year, but I do not see why we should accept that counsel of despair from the start. Although I think the Bill would be better with this Clause than without it, I do not think it is very good because, apart from this Clause, the case of Stepney v. Schneider

still operates and the discretion and rights which boroughs should have still seem to be the right answer. Whether there is a chance of achieving it in this Bill is, I agree, doubtful, but I do not think it should be assumed to be impossible.
In the meantime, faced with these two unhappy choices, I think we should do better to accept the Clause. I think it odd and inconvenient that matters like this should come under Private Bill procedure. The kind of things we have been discussing, the powers and duties of local authorities and how they should be exercised, are in their nature part of the public law of the land. This ought to be dealt with by some kind of public committee. We ought to have a kind of committee analogous to the Scottish Committee which would deal with legislation particularly that affecting London. After all, we are dealing with not far short of as many people in London county as there are in Scotland.
A great many of our difficulties tonight have been due to the fact that we have been dealing with what should be public law in this specialised Private Bill procedure. If the Government must interfere with the local government of London, that is one of the things they might at least look at while they are on the way.

9.15 p.m.

Mr. Ede: I hope that some weight will be given to the suggestions which my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) made at the end of his speech. I am inclined to reach the opposite conclusion on the Clause, because if we have this admittedly inadequate Clause put into the Bill we shall not be able to remedy the major injustices for a good time to come. I can think of nothing more ridiculous than that we should put a Clause in the Bill this year and have a new Clause next year to repeal this one and then lay down the wider considerations which we ought to have before us.
It is evident from the confessions made and the statements made on behalf of certain Metropolitan borough councils this evening that many things which are not in accordance with the law, quite apart from the question of the Schneider case, are going on and that it would be


as well if we had the whole matter settled on some such line as my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham suggested. It is surely ridiculous that it is now the law of the land that if a licence lapses for any cause the licensing authority is bound to give the licence to the first customer who puts in an application. It must lead to a lot of connivance when these valuable licences can be passed from one to another in some of the ways which have been explained to us tonight.
I hope that the hon. and learned Under-Secretary of State will take the suggestion made by my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham and try to get the authorities together. I hope that if it is possible to amend the Bill in another place we can have this year a Clause which will not deal with the establishment of a new hereditary caste in this country of people who have the right to succeed to a pitch in the market place merely because they are near relatives of the person who holds it at present.
I can see this becoming a considerable factor in the London marriage market and people saying, "Marry the girl. Her father has a pitch in the market place. She is the only daughter and he is not going to live much longer. With a little judicious help from you, of an unsympathetic nature, before you know where you are you will be the proprietor of a licence and will have your fortune made. When you have got it, get rid of the girl. It is yours and you can sell it in the black market," a black market which we have had so graphically described to us this evening.
It is ridiculous that this state of affairs should exist. It will be ludicrous this year to insert in the Bill this inadequate Clause, pointing the way to fresh abuse, and then next year to have another Clause in front of us to repeal this one and to deal with the matter on a wider basis. I hope that the Under-Secretary will report to the Secretary of State the suggestion made by my hon. Friend and I hope that in that way we may be able to deal with the situation satisfactorily this year.

Question put, That the Clause be read a Second time:—

The House proceeded to a Division:—Mr. CHATAWAY and Mr. MARSH were

appointed Tellers for the Ayes, but no Member being willing to act as Teller for the Noes, Mr. SPEAKER declared that the Ayes had it.

Clause added to the Bill.

Bill to be read the Third time.

CITY OF LONDON (VARIOUS POWERS) BILL (By Order)

Order for consideration, as amended, read.

Motion made, and Question proposed, That the Bill, as amended, be now considered.

9.23 p.m.

Mr. John Harvey: I beg to move, to leave out "now considered" and to add:
recommitted to the former Committee in respect of the provisions relating to Epping Forest which appeared in the Bill as originally deposited
instead thereof.
I am aware that, by moving this Motion, I am asking the House to adopt a procedure which is very rarely invoked. I assure the House that hon. Members on both sides who have put their names to the Motion have not done so lightly, but with a full sense of responsibility for the course which we ask the House to adopt.
On 3rd April last, the Bill was given an unopposed Second Reading by the House of Commons. The Committee has so amended the Bill as to delete Part II. Having regard to the comment made by the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. N. Stewart) on the London County Council (General Powers) Bill, with which the House has just dealt, I should make clear that the deletion by the Committee of Part II of this Bill is not something which the House can allow another place to deal with in due course, because the Bill would now go to the other place without Part II appearing in it. There would be no circumstances in which Part II could be considered unless we adopt this procedure of asking the House to recommit the Bill.
Part II strikes out from the Bill what most hon. Members who have constituency interests in its contents would regard as the whole essence and purpose of the Measure. Without Part II the Bill is emasculated. While I accept that


committees inquiring into Private Bills have considerable powers, I would remind the House that far the greatest part of the time taken on Second Reading was concentrated on Part II.
When the House gave the Bill an unopposed Second Reading it did so fully cognisant of the importance of Part II to all the interests concerned. On this ground alone one can only feel that there has been some misconception by the Committee of the attitude of the House to the Bill which they should be afforded an opportunity of reconsidering. The Committee has not dissented from the view that cattle straying from Epping, Forest into the streets and gardens of adjacent suburbia cause a nuisance and danger on the road. Not one witness called before the Committee seriously sought to deny either nuisance or danger.
What seems principally to have concerned the Committee is the practicability or otherwise of tethering cattle as a solution to this problem. The City Corporation admitted that it doubted whether tethering was practicable and Mr. Gerald Gardiner, for the promoters, said on the first day:
It is not impracticable to tether a horse or the individual cow, but, so far as these herds are concerned, we would accept the fact that it will probably be impracticable, and that is why the compensation is being provided.
Mr. Gardiner went on to say:
Our recommendation derives from considerations which stem from the desirability of making no more alteration to the ancient rights than the necessity of the case requires, commensurate with a practical alleviation of the current problem.
In other words, the provision of tethering meant that the City Corporation was seeking to avoid the abolition of commoner's rights The rights of common would be preserved for the future and for the benefit of smallholders and owners of horses and ponies, which are invariably tethered at the present time. In other words, without abolishing the general rights of common, the stipulation in regard to tethering was expected to prevent the current method of grazing beef cattle which has been the cause of all the trouble in the area.
Compensation provisions were inserted in the Bill to enable the losses of the active commoners to be measured. Any other method of limiting the free rang-

ing of cattle would cause difficulty in regard to compensation and might restrict the business of the active commoners without giving them any opportunity of recompense.
The House may ask what other methods there would be except those provided in the Bill. It is important to recognise that the principal alternative method available, if the Bill or Part II of it is lost, is one which the Committee could not possibly have envisaged and which, in my submission, calls for its further consideration. On the second day Mr. Gardiner told the Committee:
The cattle owner is in fact committing a criminal offence when he allows his cattle to be unattended on the highway. That is before it can get to the householder's garden. They are not strictly permitted to have cattle unattended, and indeed it would be a criminal offence to do so anywhere outside the green land.
The "green land" was an area on a map shown to the Committee. Mr. Gardiner went on:
It would, of course, be possible to stop all this either by so identifying them that everyone who suffers damage could sue them, which no doubt would make the whole thing uneconomic; or by prosecuting every time they are found outside the green land. It would be another way of stopping their common rights because they would have to have herdsmen which they cannot afford and again they would get no compensation.

9.30 p.m.

Mr. Ronald Bell: Mr. Gardiner, from whom my hon. Friend has been quoting, was simply counsel for the promoters. That was said in argument and by way of contention.

Mr. Harvey: Certainly, and what he said was not disputed by any other counsel there and is not capable of being disputed because it is fact.
The local populace has never been told what Mr. Gardiner so clearly stated, that a criminal offence is committed when cattle roam unattended on a highway if that highway is not part of the forest. More and more, therefore, if local people who feel aggrieved as the situation at present stands are denied Part II of the Bill, they will tend to pester the police to take action. More and more the police will have to prosecute until the whole business of grazing cattle in this way becomes impossible for any commoner. He may find himself


unable to common cattle and unable to benefit from the generous compensation offered in the Bill. I cannot think that that is what the Committee intended.
In terms of civil law, too, the Committee stage brought out the fact that some commoners insure themselves against damage done to property, but is is clear from the evidence that this insurance is based on the fallacious assumption that local residents have a duty to fence against the forest. That they have no such duty is now abundantly clear.
How this may affect future claims against the commoners or the future attitude of insurance companies remains to be seen, but one thing is abundantly clear, namely, that the active commoners themselves would rather have the Bill, the whole Bill, and its entitlement to compensation. The commoners are not among the petitioners against the Bill. The petitioners against the Bill are the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, and the Wanstead and Woodford Borough Council.
Worthy bodies though they are, it is worth bearing in mind in the context of the Bill that the Council for the Preservation of Rural England has a national membership of approximately 5,000, including some local residents, that the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society has a national membership of 2,300, including some local residents, and that the Wanstead and Woodford Borough Council serves a population of 61,000. Against this, 630,000 people reside in the areas of the local authorities of East Ham, West Ham, Walthamstow, Leyton, Chingford, Chigwell urban district, Epping urban district, Waltham Holy Cross urban district, and Epping and Ongar rural district, all supporting the whole Bill.
I have received a letter from the Town Clerk of Walthamstow, who tells me that the finance and general purposes committee of his council on 20th June, passed a resolution stating:
That a Petition be presented to Parliament against alterations in the City of London (Various Powers) Bill in so far as it deals with Epping Forest, that the Common Seal of the Council be affixed to the Petition, and that the

Town Clerk take the necessary steps to implement the object of the Petition, including the engagement of Parliamentary Agents.
I understand that similar action has been taken by the county borough of West Ham. I have reason to believe that other local authorities concerned are prepared to act similarly and to seek to appear before the Committee if the Bill is recommitted. The reason that they did not act earlier was that they had left the matter in the hands of the Corporation of the City of London and they could not believe, after the debates in the House in February, 1959, and April, 1962, that the Bill could possibly be emasculated as it has been in Committee. I would urge that this constitutes another very good reason why the House should recommit the Bill tonight, since a whole body of new evidence can be put before the Committee in this way.
One suggestion was made before the Committee that I might perhaps mention. It is that grazing might be limited to the summer months. Such a limitation was, in fact, tried in the winter of 1960–61, and the commoners found it utterly uneconomic and were not prepared to repeat the experiment in the subsequent winter. There is, therefore, no reason to believe that such a solution would be generally acceptable to the commoners today, but even if, as has been suggested, this solution were to mitigate the nuisance and damage to property aspect of the problem, it would hardly help at all the road traffic aspect, since it is in summer, and particularly during summer weekends, that traffic into and out of the forest is at its peak.
In the Second Reading debate in April, I drew attention to the fact that upwards of 23 accidents occurred every year directly involving cattle; that is to say, about 10 per cent. of all the animals grazing in the forest are involved in a road accident every year, so that, if nothing is done for, say, a further five years, the House will be condoning that there should be at least another 100 accidents, every one of which could be avoided by taking action now.
The Chairman's Report to the House said:
The Report of the Minister of Transport contained no recommendation".


This is so simple a statement of fact as to be utterly misleading, because Mr. G. A. Barry, of the Ministry of Transport, appeared before the Committee on the fourth day on which it sat, and he said this about the attitude of the Ministry of Transport:
My Minister's position is that his sole interest in the Bill is road traffic and safety matters, but in view of the fact that a good deal of evidence was produced as to the seriousness of the accidents and the question of who was to blame I think perhaps I should clarify the basis on which this Report was made. II rests on a very simple proposition, which is that there are undoubtedly occurring a fair number of accidents involving cattle. If some measure such as that suggested in the Bill is introduced, whereby the cattle are restrained from wandering on to the roads, that will automatically eliminate a certain class of accident entirely. To that extent, the Minister views this as a good thing from his point of view of road safety. We think it would be desirable, even if it is only making a small contribution to road safety, and I think that is all there is to report.
All there is to report? Is there any Member of the House who dissents for a moment from the contention that if a certain class of accident can be eliminated entirely, this House and its Committees have some duty to take this possibility seriously?
Let me say this final word. The Corporation of the City of London has endeavoured to act as an honest broker in all this, reconciling in the best possible way the various interests involved. If this attempt fails, it can see no other way in which it can resolve the problem. These conditions must worsen, either for the general public or for the commoners, or both, in all the various ways which I have endeavoured to explain. I have sought to show that the introduction of tethering need not be regarded as a serious reason for rejecting Part H of the Bill. If it would help the House, I understand that the Corporation would be prepared to add the words
tethered or otherwise adequately restrained
into a filled Bill to be presented to the Committee. It is my hope that this suggestion might help the House and the Committee out of any difficulty that remains over recommittal.
I hope that the House will agree that I have adduced sufficient reasons for asking the Committee to give further thought to the not unimportant problems involved in the Bill.

Mr. Carol Johnson: Tonight the House is having a debate of a rather unusual character as has been indicated by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey). It is as well that hon. Members should appreciate fully what they are being asked to do by the Amendment. Whatever it may be in farm, the Amendment is an attempt to treat this House as a court of appeal against the decision of a Committee of the House constituted by the House for the express purpose of considering the Private Bill referred to in the Amendment. The Committee examined the alleged facts on which the Bill is founded and in the light of the evidence submitted to it decided that the allegations had not been duly proved.
The first point on which I take issue with the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East relates to the importance which he attaches to the fact that in April last this House gave an unopposed Second Reading to the Bill. I wish to direct the attention of the hon. Member to the exact significance and importance of that decision. The hon. Member has misled
the House as to what it implies. The position is clearly set out on page 945 of Erskine May, 16th Edition. If bon. Members wild permit me, I will read it, because it is against this background that the Amendment should be considered:
The second reading of a private bill corresponds with the same stage in other bills, and in agreeing to it the House affirms the general principle, or expediency, of the measure. There is, however, a distinction between the second reading of a public and of a private bill: a public bill being founded on reasons of state policy, the House, in agreeing to its second reading, accepts and affirms those reasons; but the expediency of a private Dill, being mainly founded upon allegations of fact, which have not yet been proved, the House, in agreement to its second reading, affirms the principle of the bill conditionally, and subject to the proof of such allegations before the committee.
When we turn to the findings of the Committee, we discover that in the conclusions of the Committee the Chairman dealt specifically with the aspect of the matter relating to Part II and Epping Forest. He said that the Committee
find that so much of the Preamble as relates to Part II, Epping Forest. has not been proved.


It is against that decision that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East and those associated with him are appealing to the House.
I would remind the House that that decision was arrived at by a Committee which sat for four days and heard eighteen witnesses as well as representatives of Government Departments, and which was assisted by counsel for the promoters and for the petitioners. I think the last point important, for it cannot be argued that the Committee was not fully informed on the legal aspects of the matters contained in the Bill. In fact, one of the members of the Committee put this point specifically at one stage by saying:
Can I be quite certain that if either Counsel misleads us on law the other one challenges?
That was apparently agreed. It cannot therefore be argued either that the facts were not fully before the Committee or that there was any misdirection on the law relating to them.
In those circumstances, there appears to be no case in support of the Amendment, and there is no precedent in recent years which can be called in aid. The position seems to be completely covered by the statement in Erskine May where on page 986 with reference to Private Bills it says:
This course, however, of recommitting a bill of which the committee have reported the preamble 'not proved'"—
which is the case in relation to the City of London (General Powers) Bill—
is unusual and requires a strong case to be made out for its adoption.
I submit that the hon. Gentleman has completely failed to produce any such strong case.
Moreover, even if the House were to agree to a recommittal, this would not in itself achieve any useful purpose, for in the absence of any specific direction to the Committee, the Committee presumably would come to the same decision as before, but it would have this unfortunate effect from the point of view both of the promoters and the petitioners against the Bill, that they would be put to a good deal of additional expense.
The petitioners took pains to see that all the available evidence was before

the Committee, and one would surely be entitled to assume that the City Corporation did the same. From remarks made by the hon. Gentleman this evening, it appears that that they have had second thoughts and now wish to submit other considerations, but surely it is not for this House to provide them with that facility.

9.45 p.m.

Mr. J. Harvey: It is not the City of London Corporation which has had second thoughts and wishes to submit further evidence, but other local authorities.

Mr. Johnson: If that is so, this would surely be a never-ending process? It seems to me that the solution is to be found in the words used by the Chairman of the Committee. He indicated clearly the way out for the promoters. When announcing the decision of the Committee, after referring to the findings of the Committee that the Preamble relating to Epping Forest had not been proved, he said:
The Committee recognise the situation in which the City Corporation find themselves but are compelled to have regard to the fact that the only solution afforded in the Bill refers to tethering and that other possible solutions have not been sufficiently considered and discussed with the interested parties
In that connection, one of the witnesses for the petitioners—and the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East omitted to say that one commoner was opposed to the Bill and gave evidence against it —made a number of constructive suggestions dealing with the problems raised by the Bill. These should certainly be looked at. When this has been done and the consultations suggested by the Chairman of the Committee have taken place, the City Corporation might like to consider coming to Parliament again with a Bill drafted on different lines and one which will not arouse the opposition which the present Bill has done. This cannot be done this Session, however, and the promoters should not be encouraged to believe that if they dislike the findings of a Committee of this House, they can come and ask that the Committee should be instructed to have second thoughts or consider something that the promoters failed to put before the Committee in the first instance.
I hope, therefore, that for all these reasons the hon. Member will withdraw his Motion or that, if he does not withdraw it. the House will show its confidence in the Committee by refusing to create a precedent which can only undermine the whole of the present system for dealing with Private Bills.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I rise to express the same point of view as has been put by the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson). I listened with some surprise to the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey). He dealt—I am sure, with the utmost sincerity—with the question of merit as to whether the tethering of these cattle was a good or bad thing or the right or wrong solution to the problem which one finds in Epping Forest.
That is not a matter that we ought to go into in any way tonight. The issue surely arises on a clear question of principle and procedure. Like the hon. Member for Lewisham, South, I am a member of the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society, which lodged a petition objecting to these Causes in conjunction with the Council for the Preservation of Rural England and the Wanstead and Woodford Borough Council. I took no part in the Second Reading debate, however, because I did not think that my view on the tethering of cattle in Epping Forest was of great value to the House.
This is precisely the sort of matter which, under our Private Bill procedure, is properly left to decision in Committee after the hearing of evidence from witnesses, arguments from counsel and all the rest, by a semi-judicial procedure. I thought that the Commons Society had decided rightly, like the other objectors, to make its objection through counsel and witnesses before the Private Bill Committee.
I shall not say anything tonight about the merits. This House sets up a procedure for Private Bills and says to people, "This Bill does not go through Committee of the whole House or a Standing Committee. it is no good writing to your Member about this. We have appointed four of our number and you must lodge a petition in a formal way and come before those Members

on a certain day with your counsel and witnesses, and they will listen to everything which you have to say and decide on our behalf upon these detailed points Which arise on a Private Bill".
That is what happened here. The parties came and incurred great expense. The hearing lasted four days, with leading counsel on both sides. Eighteen witnesses were called and the whole matter was thrashed out by people who had local and expert knowledge of the issues raised. At the end of that process, when our colleagues to whom the matter has been remitted decide in our name that one side has prevailed and the other has failed, is it to be decided to sweep all that aside and to cancel the proceedings for no other reason than that the result is disagreeable to those who have failed, possibly unexpectedly for some of them?
What way is it to treat petitioners and objectors by saying, "Of course, if you incur this expense and trouble and fail, the proceedings shall stand, but if you go through this process and succeed, we will set it aside without hearing evidence. We will not hear the witnesses or the arguments, but we will simply set it aside upon a debate held at ten o'clock at night in a rather thin House". Is that the way to carry on our Private Bill procedure? I ask the House to consider whether this is a responsible process upon which we are asked to embark tonight.

Mr. R. W. Sorensen: May I ask the hon. Member this simple question? Am I to assume by his argument that, automatically, whatever comes from a Committee must be accepted quite blindly by this House?

Mr. Bell: If the hon. Member had sat on and listened, that was obviously the next point in my argument to which I was coming.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East is not asking us to do something that has never been done before in the history of this House, but is asking us to do something which has been done only on the rarest of occasions. As far as I know, judging from Erskine May, it has not been done since 1913—and never for this sort of reason. The only time that the House in the past


has recommitted a Bill from a Private Bill Committee has been for some quite special reason and never upon the ground that it was surprised by or did not agree with the result.
May I tell the House the sort of occasion upon which this has been done? The last occasion was in 1913 when, owing to the lateness of the Bill in the Session the promoters decided to withdraw it and the Private Bill Committee therefore reported that the Preamble was not proved. The House then recommitted the Bill, giving the Committee power to split it into two Bills, one containing the unopposed provisions and the other containing the opposed provisions, so that it could pass a Bill containing only the unopposed provisions in the short time left in the Session and stand the others over for some later procedure.
There was another occasion in the same year where the Committee itself, having before it the interesting question whether East Ham should be constituted a county borough, decided that this raised novel and important questions of general principle and invited the House to discuss them and to recommit the Bill, if it thought fit, for further consideration by the Committee. The initiative was taken by the Private Bill Committee saying to the House, "We should like the reinforcement of a public debate in the House on this issue."
The occasion before that was in 1902, when the Committee reported that the Preamble was not proved and the House picked out some unopposed Clauses of the Bill and said, "We will recommit the Bill to you in respect of the unopposed parts and you can pass that, but where you have found against the promoters and in favour of the objectors, that will remain cut out".
There are only about another six precedents in the whole history of the House, and on every occasion all that the House has done has been to let unopposed Clauses go through by a process of recommittal where it felt that the Bill was separable and the Private Bill Committee had rejected the whole Bill but the House thought that some of the unopposed parts might go through on their own.
That is the history of this procedure. The House is being asked tonight to do something which it has not done for the last 100 to 120 years—to cancel the proceedings before a Private Bill Committee in which the objectors have succeeded and to tell them that they have wasted their time. If this Bill went back to the Committee, without instruction, in respect of these Clauses, I suppose that the whole process would have to be gone through again, with counsel and 18 witnesses. It would be impossible for the objectors to recover their costs because the Clause has been struck out, and if it were put in again it would not be put in for the protection of the objectors and it would, therefore, fall outside Parliamentary Costs Acts. That is the sort of hardship which occurs if one starts to monkey about with well-established and understood procedure.
That being the background, what are the reasons which my hon. Friend put forward why we should take this dramatic and outrageous step? The Walthamstow Council and one other borough——

Mr. J. Harvey: Several others.

Mr. Bell: That makes it worse. They did not realise that the objectors might succeed. They knew that petitions had been lodged by the Council for the Preservation of Rural England, the Commons Society, the Borough of Wanstead and Woodford——

It being Ten o'clock, the debate stood adjourned.
Proceedings on the City of London (Various Powers) Bill set down for consideration at Seven o'clock this evening by direction of the Chairman of Ways and Means exempted, at this day's Sitting, from the provisions of Standing Order No. 1 (Sittings of the House). —[Mr. Vane.]

Question again proposed.

Mr. Bell: They knew that these substantial and important bodies had lodged their petitions, would be represented by distinguished counsel and would call their witnesses. But they thought, apparently, that there was no chance of their succeeding, and so they did not bother to come along and support the Corporation of London. Now the House is asked to take this extraordinary step so that they may come


along and give some evidence which they had every chance of giving before but did not bother to give. That is the essence of the matter.
The City of London called five witnesses. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthaingtow, East also attended as a witness in support of the Bill and these Clauses and, I believe, read letters from constituents about what the cattle had done to their gardens. If that was not hearsay, I should like to know what is. If those letters could not be cross-examined, they were indeed what the soldier said. I was not present, but I have heard—this is hearsay too—that the other witnesses for the City of London also took it a bit in their stride and thought that it would be a romp, and the result was that they did not prove their Preamble. So now they come to the House and say, "Please give us another chance to go through it again. We can do better this time."
I ask the House to treat this Motion on that ground, and that ground only. as one affecting almost the decency of our procedure. It would be an outrage, a most deplorable precedent and complete departure from our long-established practice if this were to be done in this case and for these reasons. I therefore ask the House to reject the Motion and to affirm its support of those hon. Members who, on the Private Bill Committee, have discharged the function which the House entrusted to them.

Mr Sorensen: Nothing said by the hon. Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Ronald Bell) alters the fact that the House is the final authority and that whatever deliberations the Committees may have had and whatever conclusions they may have reached, good or bad, in the end they have to be endorsed or rejected by the House.
It may well be—I do not know—that the various authorities which have been mentioned tonight have not fulfilled their obligations as they should have done. Maybe the hon. Member is correct about that; I do not know. All I can say is that the Bill, originally promoted by the City of London authority, concerns not really the City of London but our constituents—the constituents of my area, of Walthamstow where I live, and

of other adjacent areas. It seems monstrous and almost fantastic that the overwhelming opinion of thousands of citizens in those urban areas should be put on one side, in the interests of either administrative nicety or of bodies with ulterior purposes.

Mr. Ronald Bell: I must ask the hon. Member to explain what he means by "ulterior purposes". That is a most opprobrious phrase.

Mr. Sorensen: Impatient as 1 was with the hon. Member, I will enlighten him in due course. Before I explain what I mean by "organisations with ulterior purposes", I would stress again the fact that although my name is not attached to the Amendment, that is not because I lack any sympathy with it. It was through an oversight that my name was not given in. I also recognise that the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey) and my hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, West (Mr. Redhead) have borne the brunt of the struggle.
I return to the fact that we have this astonishing position that, irrespective of whatever the City of London may desire, the overwhelming majority of citizens in all the areas named tonight, with the single exception of Wanstead and Woodford, want this restriction imposed on the cattle.
I have said that there are bodies with what I think are ulterior motives. I turn now to those who have made a statement about this Bill. The statement is on behalf not only of Wanstead and Woodford Corporation but also on behalf of the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. When I spoke of ulterior motives, I meant it in an inoffensive sense. I would remind the Council that my constituency is not rural, nor are any of the constituencies represented here tonight in this House. They are all urban areas, and, that being so, I want to know what business the Council has with purely urban areas.

Mr. C. Johnson: If my hon. Friend would cast his mind back 100 years he would find that had it not been for such preservation societies there would be no forest at all today. It was they who saved it.

Mr. Sorensen: I have every admiration for such bodies when they do the right job, which is for rural areas and not for urban. Many organisations perform great service not only in my area but in other areas. But that does not justify their intrusion into a province which is not properly theirs. That is one of the reasons why I allege innocent and well meaning ulterior motives in this case. They are misapplying their intentions in this matter.
Let these bodies get on with the task of preserving Epping Forest itself. No one is more anxious to do that than I am. I look at the forest almost every day I am at home. I am glad to be able to see it from my study window. It is on the fringe of my constituency. But the greater part of the 90,000 people in Leyton and the 100,000 in Waltham-stow do not live in an area with rural amenities but in an urban area. That is why I spoke of ulterior motives. What has the Commons, Open Spaces and Footpaths Preservation Society to do with this Bill?

Mr. Bell: It is interested because Epping Forest is a common.

Mr. Sorensen: We are not discussing the forest as such but the intrusion of cattle from the forest into urban areas. I have no objection to the cattle remaining in the forest, for that is where they belong. But I object when they come out straying into gardens and leaving behind horrible messes in areas not meant for them.
I ask those hon. Members who are opposed to us in this matter, and whose energy and interest I appreciate, to realise that if they were living adjacent to the forest, as do many of us and our constituents, their policy would be very different from that which they are pursuing tonight. They would have studied some other plan to get on with the excellent work of preservation of footpaths and of the cattle in the forest, while at the same time recognising that there is a situation now which did not exist even fifty years ago, because the urbanisation of these areas has proceeded largely in the last half century, although it began well before then.
Under these circumstances, a sense of proportion is needed much more than a

blind opposition with external motives misapplied. I hope that that explains what I meant by the phrase "ulterior motives"—in other words, other motives which I believe are misapplied in this matter.
Everyone knows that the wandering of the cattle in this way is an anachronism. As I have said before, the sight of these bovine creatures wandering about is pleasantly rural at a distance, but when they stray into areas quite unsuitable for them, causing mischief and danger, then their freedom to do so becomes anachronistic.
I submit again to the hon. Members opposing this recommittal to have a sense of proportion and to realise that we are not opposed to the cattle in the forest but, that, owing to circumstances which did not exist many years ago, there should be provision for preventing the dangers which are now present. However earnest and sincere the hon. Gentlemen may have been who sat on this Committee, frankly, I do not have confidence in their judgment. We are entitled to say that they have not sufficiently appreciated all the circumstances. It may very well be that those who bore witness did not do justice to their case, and it may be that the various authorities did not do all that they could in this matter; but that should not impose injustice on our constituents. Our constituents are entitled to be heard and the weight of the judgment of probably 250,000 people, through their representatives, is entitled to be heard in a way that it apparently was not heard when the Committee sat for those four days
If, for instance, the deer in Richmond Park were to wander through Richmond and the deer at the other end of Epping Forest should ever be induced to come to our area and wander on our roads or in other parts adjacent to London, railings would be put up to prevent the animals from wandering through the streets and those who have spoken on behalf of these admirable societies would then begin to see reason. We plead that hon. Members and the members of the Committee should appreciate the great weight of public opinion in every adjacent area except one, and even there, I believe, there was a very serious difference of opinion.
For these reasons, I strongly support the submission made by the hon. Member, who represents the district where I live, that the House should depart from precedent—sometimes that has been done in order that justice may be done—and return this Bill to the Gentlemen who sat on the Committee or to others who might sit on the Committee, so that they could reconsider the whole matter in the light of that submission.

10.15 p.m.

Mr. Harold Gurden: I was Chairman of the Committee which the House appointed to consider the Bill. I do not intervene tonight to discuss in any way the merits of the Bill, neither to be drawn into any discussion nor even to vote. The official record shows the action of the Committee and the voting of the Committee. I intervene merely to say that it is on record that all the members of the Committee were not unanimously agreed on every single point. Speaking for the other three members of the Committee, I say that it was a very competent Committee that did its job very diligently and carefully and took into account the whole of the evidence placed before it. Those are very important words in view of what has been said tonight—"the whole of the evidence placed before it."
No fault can be found with the Committee which did its job so well, whatever the House may think of its decision at the end of the day. It showed no bias at any time. None of the Members on it had any interest at stake and did not live in or serve the areas concerned. I am in a position to say that the hon. Members concerned feel so unbiased and wish to be helpful in this matter that the Committee is quite willing to accept whatever decision the House may reach tonight, even if that necessitates further deliberation.
It is for the House to judge whether there is sufficient or fresh evidence to lay before the Committee, because if there is nothing new and nothing which the House thinks warrants consideration, it is only fair to assume that the Committee might well reach the same conclusions. If the House feels that there is good and sufficient reason why the Committee should reconsider this matter, then the Committee is at the service of

the House. It is for the House to consider whether there are good and sufficient reasons.

Mr. R. E. Prentice: I support the Motion for recommittal and I do so as a representative of the County Borough of East Ham, which clearly has an interest in this matter. We all appreciate the spirit in which the hon. Member for Birmingham, Selly Oak (Mr. Gurden) has just spoken. It is because of the way in which Committees, such as that over which he presided, deal with these matters and the care with which they do their work and the impartiality which they show that it is very rare for the House to recommit a Private Bill in this way. Equally, it is clear that the House has the right to do so, and no one has disputed that. There are few precedents. I was interested to learn that one of them concerns the County Borough of East Ham, on whose behalf I wish to add a little to the discussion.
The views of important local authorities which surround this area and which among them represent more than 600,000 people should be an important consideration in deciding whether this matter should go back for further consideration by the Committee. Last Wednesday evening, the finance and general purposes committee of the East Ham Borough Council considered this matter and made a decision similar to that made by the other two local authorities which have been mentioned. It decided to combine with other local authorities in the area to present a petition and to brief counsel to put its views in the event of the Bill being recommitted.
It may be asked why the council did not do that earlier, and perhaps it should have done so. But it was at least reasonable for it to assume that the City of London would put a point of view which would largely represent what East Ham Council had in mind. Secondly, because Part II of the Bill had been debated so thoroughly on 3rd April, and because it was in the light of that discussion that the House gave the Bill a unanimous Second Reading, it was reasonable for East Ham, West Ham, Leyton, Walthamstow and the other authorities to assume that Part II would not be deleted in this way.
It was to their surprise that it was deleted, and in view of that they are asking for the right now to put their own view and to brief counsel themselves on the very important points that they have in mind. East Ham has two interests. First, it represents people who live on the border of Wanstead Flats. The town clerk has told me that in eighteen months he has had reported to him ten instances of cattle straying into the gardens of people living in East Ham but on the borders of the Flats. Those were only the incidents reported, and no doubt there were many others which occurred but which were not reported.
Secondly, the borough of East Ham has an interest, as landlords of the people living in the Aldersbrook Estate, which is in the borough of Wanstead and Woodford. They have suffered greater nuisance still. The estate is an area with a narrow entrance, and if cattle once get in it is difficult for them to find their way out again. On the night of 23rd-24th January of this year, 25 cattle were in the area of the estate for some hours and did a considerable amount of damage.
I have a great deal of sympathy with the Council for the Preservation of Rural England. I speak as an enthusiastic walker. I love the countryside, and I appreciate that people who live in my constituency, in a built-up area, derive a tremendous amount of pleasure from walking in Epping Forest. I am always disposed to support the views of the Council on the various things that it takes up, but it seems to me that there are occasions—and this is one—when it goes to a rather absurd extreme. In preserving the amenities of the countryside or of rural areas we must have regard to the rights of people living in or on the edge of those areas. In this case we must also have regard to the question of road safety. The number of accidents referred to by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey) which have occurred because of straying cattle should be an important consideration in the case.
For all these reasons I submit that this matter should be sent back to the Committee, especially because local authorities representing over 600,000

people are asking that it should be reconsidered, and their views ought to be respected by the House.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson: I am sorry to detain the House at this late hour, but the questions at issue tonight far transcend the merits or demerits of these proposals. What is really at issue is the question whether the House should go back upon a procedure that has stood for scores of years and that the Bill should be recommitted to the Private Bill Committee in respect of the provisions relating to Epping Forest.
The question has often been debated in the House, and the House has nearly always come to the conclusion that it would be a mistake to go behind proceedings that have taken place in the Private Bill Committee. I remember taking part in a debate on 4th May, 1949, when the Bolton Corporation Bill was before the House. The view that I then expressed was supported by the House in the Division. The procedure laid down by the House permits full access to the Committee by objectors, through counsel and witnesses. This Motion would strike at the very roots of this procedure. I beg the House earnestly to consider seriously not merely the merits of the proposal, on which varying views may be held, but the principle of the matter.
I am sure that it would be a mistake to support a proceeding which would tend to wreck the procedure laid down by this House and followed by us for so long in dealing with Private Bills.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: The constitutional objections to the Motion are serious ones. Nevertheless, they carry no more weight than this, that the House should engage in the exceptional procedure that the Motion asks it to embark upon tonight only in circumstances which are exceptional. The burden falls upon those who seek recommittal to establish that there is, for instance, as I believe to be the case, a body of fresh evidence which was not available to the Committee and which might well lead it to come to a different conclusion.
The Chairman of the Private Bill Committee, who has addressed the


House tonight, has spoken with due prudence but in a mood and manner which hold out some encouragement that if there is a body of fresh evidence available it may well induce the Committee to take a different view next time.

Mr. Gurden: I was careful not to commit any member of the Committee. What I said was that the Committee simply wishes to offer its service to the House if there is indeed fresh evidence to lay before it. but I said how important it was that there should be something more on which the Committee could deliberate. I would not for a moment wish to commit the Committee. or any member of it.

Mr. Elwyn Jones: The hon. Member is perfectly right. What he said does not in any way commit the Committee, but, if there is available to the House evidence that there were fresh matters, not canvassed last time but which are now available, I submit that the House should give due consideration to those fresh matters. I rise, not on behalf of anyone, but in the light of representations from West Ham Council in this matter. The contents of the letter I have received from the town clerk certainly indicate that there is information which would now be represented, no doubt with vigour, energy and ability, from West Ham, information which was not available before the Committee at the appropriate time.
It is not for me, least of all, to consider why perhaps greater energy was not previously applied to this matter, but the information available to me—and it has been spoken of from other sources as well— is that, for instance, with respect to the nuisance caused by the straying of cattle far more information is available now than was placed before the Committee. Secondly, in the matter of danger further statistical evidence is available that the straying of cattle causes serious danger to the life and limb of pedestrians and motorists and, incidentally, a great deal of danger to the animals themselves.
Some of those animals have been maimed and killed by reason of the excessive use and exercise of the rights of common made by those few whose interest in this matter—let us face it

frankly—is commercial and has little to do with the preservation of rural England.

Mr. Ede: My hon. and learned Friend the Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) said that fresh evidence is now available. Was it not available when the Committee considered this matter? Is this not another way of saying that the various local authorities backed the wrong horse at the time and now they would like representations which they could have presented before—at some cost to themselves, let us admit? That would have been presented on a petition which they would have paid for and they would have to brief counsel, and so on.
If it was available, then is it not rather late in the day to -ay that this much-advertised Bill —which had to be advertised in the local papers and went through all sorts of preliminary proceedings in which its contents were made very well known in the area—should be held up because they decided it was not worth while spending their money on it?

Mr. Elwyn Jones: My right hon. Friend will not expect me to agree that West Ham would ever back the wrong horse. On this occasion the simple fact remains, according to my understanding, that there is now additional information available which should be tested, both in regard to the extent of the nuisance and of the danger.
10.30 p.m.
I also admire the public spirit which the Council for the Preservation of Rural England applies in these matters. But if the sight of indignant and angry householders chasing, tattle from their gardens and indignant and angry sportsmen chasing the wandering cattle from the playing fields of Wanstead, which have been developed at great expense and are a great amenity to the public, if that sight of public anger confronted with this abuse of ancient privilege represents a picture of rural England that ought to be preserved, it is not my idea of an England that ought to be preserved.
There is otherwise a good deal of attractive zeal in this matter. I am not necessarily saying that 600,000 people


cannot be wrong, but: there is a considerable body of feeling and opinion behind this matter. As there is evidence, according to my information, that a further consideration of it by the Committee could well result in the reversal of its previous decision, it is proper that the House should take this step. The House is the master of its own decisions. The House is supreme. The Committee, to which consideration of the matter was referred, is the servant

of the House and not its equal. It is a delegate of the House. In all these circumstances, although I appreciate that these exceptional steps should indeed be regarded as exceptional, I cannot help feeling that we are in the presence of an exceptional case.

Mr. Ronald Bell: How many innings does the hon. and learned Member think it ought to have?

Mr. Elwyn Jones: I think that a second innings would be enough.

Sir Colin Thornton-Kemsley: I ought to explain why I, a Member for a Scottish constituency, seek to catch Mr. Speaker's eye at this hour of the night. I was born in a house in Epping Forest. I lived in a house in a very lovely part of the forest for the first 25 or 26 years of my life, and ever since I can remember I have spent parts of each weekend walking or riding in the forest. I am sure that I love the forest as much as does anyone in this House and that I know it almost as well as anyone who has spoken in the debate.
But I cannot help feeling that the subject we ought to be debating tonight is not whether cattle should be restricted or tethered in Epping Forest. What we are asked to consider is whether the House should carry the Amendment which seeks to recommit Part II of the Bill to the Committee of the House which has already considered it so thoroughly. I am sure that the right line was taken by those hon. Members, such as my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South (Mr. Bell), the hon. Member for Lewisham, South (Mr. C. Johnson) and indeed my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Sir G. Nicholson) who counselled the House that we should be very unwise to go against long-established precedents in this matter.
My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East (Mr. J. Harvey) has made it quite clear that it is his intention that the matter should be referred to the same Committee. Indeed, that is the case. A reading of Erskine May makes it quite clear that the reference is a reference back to the same Committee and not a reference to a new Committee. This is the Committee which, as various hon. Members have reminded us, considered the evidence offered to it by 18 witnesses, a Committee which sat for four days and the deliberations of which covered over 100 pages of closely typed foolscap, most of which I have read with the greatest interest. I should be very happy to debate with anyone in the House whether or not cattle should be tethered in Epping Forest, whether tethering is kind to cattle, a good thing for cattle, or

a good thing for pedestrians or anyone else. But that is not what we are discussing tonight. We are discussing whether there should be a reference back.
Erskine May makes perfectly clear the grounds on which there can be a recommittal in cases such as this. On pages 986 and 987 there are various examples, some of which were quoted by my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South, where Bills have been recommitted. I shall not weary the House with further examples now. I am not a lawyer, but I think it is clear from Erskine May that the sort of cases where recommittal might be justified are, for instance, cases where evidence which was not available at the time has subsequently become available. My hon. Friend the Member for Walthamstow, East has said that a whole body of new evidence could be put before the Committee. The hon. and learned Member for West Ham, South (Mr. Elwyn Jones) suggested that there is new evidence in the case. No one has said what this new evidence is. No one has made clear that there is any evidence available now which was not amply available previously and which could not have been put before the Committee if only people had taken the time to present it.
Recommittal of a Bill might be justifiable if the Committee wrongfully refused to hear evidence, or if it made its decision before hearing one or other of the parties who had a right to be heard. Recommittal might be justifiable if the Committee was misdirected as to a point of law. None of these circumstances arises here, and no one has suggested that it does. I agree with my hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South that if promoters of a Bill or Members of Parliament are able to secure a recommittal merely because they disagree with the findings of a Committee, this cannot fail to result in undermining confidence in the Committees of the House.
That is the case in brief. In my view, we should resist the Motion. To summarise it, being anxious to be as brief as possible, I put the argument in this way. First, I say that we should deny recommittal on the ground that it would serve no useful purpose. The movers


of the Motion do not seek to give any instructions to the Committee. In my view, the Committee could only come to the same conclusion as it reached after hearing evidence for so long and examining the matter very carefully. It is worth noting also that any solution to the problem other than the tethering of cattle would be outside the Preamble of the Bill, so no one can come forward with a new solution. The decision must be on the question of tethering which the Committee has already considered.

Mr. George Brown: I am following the argument with the greatest interest. I was not born in Epping Forest, and I neither walk nor live in Epping Forest. I am listening to the discussion and trying to make up my mind about what should be done. As I understand his argument, the hon. Member for North Angus and Mearns (Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley) says that the House ought not to recommit the Bill simply because it disagrees with the Committee. If that doctrine be right, does it not make the Committee sovereign over the House? If the House, which is sovereign, disagrees with the Committee, is not that a ground on which we ought to send the Bill back to the Committee?

Sir C. Thornton-Kemsley: With respect, I do not think that that is the right doctrine. As the right hon. Gentleman knows perfectly well, this House follows precedent established by long practice and enshrined in Erskine May. The Parliamentary practice is quite clear. There are precedents for over a hundred years. No Committee of this House has a matter of this kind recommitted except on special grounds. Erskine May makes the point clearly:
… when a committee have resolved that the preamble of a private bill has not been proved, and ordered the chairman to report, it is not competent for them to reconsider and reverse their decision, but that the bill should be recommitted for that purpose. This course, however, of recommending a bill of which the committee have reported the preamble 'not proved' is unusual and requires a strong case to be made out for its adoption.
My hon. Friend the Member for Buckinghamshire, South, who spoke When the right hon. Member was not in the Chamber, referred to several cases quoted in Erskine May where new circumstances

have arisen. But no one has suggested tonight that there are new circumstances.
I think that it would be wrong for the House to do this. It would break the precedent and no useful purpose would be served. In the absence of a new direction the Committee could only come to the same decision. Recommittal would lead to additional costs. It would be contrary to the practice of the House and undermine confidence in the Committees of the House.

Mr. E. C. Redhead: I have listened to the debate with great interest, and I wish to make abundantly clear that those who have subscribed their names to this Motion have done so in no spirit of disregard for the amenities of Epping Forest. We all represent constituencies where the constituents have a passionate regard for the preservation of Epping Forest, and it would be quite wrong to attribute to us a desire to destroy its real amenities. Neither are we opposed in principle to the exercise of the ancient rights of the commoners. We complain that in the exercise of those rights there is an intrusion into the rights of house holders and the users of the highway to their danger and damage. That is the simple issue of this Bill.

Sir Godfrey Nicholson: Is the hon. Gentleman arguing the case which was put before the Committee, or is he producing new evidence? I think it only fair that he should state why he is asking the House to depart from precedent. Surely the only serious basis for doing that is that there is new evidence. This is a serious constitutional point. If the Committee came to the same conclusion again, would the hon. Gentleman make this speech again?

Mr. Redhead: If the hon. Gentleman will be patient, I think he will see that it is my intention to address myself to the purpose of the Motion and not to reargue the whole of the merits of the Bill.
Reference has been made to the peculiar interests of those who have petitioned against the Bill, and whose petition, so far, has been successful. I am equally entitled to point out that those who dissent are not opposed to the fundamental aspect of preserving the amenities and beauties of Epping Forest.


What we are asking has been said to be unusual and without precedent. I agree that that is so. But I wish to submit, with all humility, that because it is unusual is no reason why, if the House is competent to do what we ask, it should not do so. I believe that there is a good case for the Motion.
10.45 p.m.
It is not correct, as has been suggested in the debate, that what the Committee is being asked to do is to cancel and set aside all its proceedings to date. What it is being asked to do is to take further consideration of factors which, in the opinion of those responsible for the Motion, have not been fully appreciated by the Committee, either because the evidence which we believe to be available was not available to the Committee——

Sir G. Nicholson: Why not?

Mr. Redhead: —or because no opportunity was afforded to the promoters of the Bill to apprehend that such evidence would be required by the Committee.
I do not want to argue the merits of the Bill again, but I am entitled to point out that Part II of the Bill, which has been struck out by the Committee, was the real substance of the Bill. It was only after a full debate directed almost exclusively to that part of the Bill, in which every speaker—six in number—with a constituency interest and an intimate knowledge from personal acquaintance of the difficulties and problems that had arisen of straying cattle, had spoken in that debate in support of the Bill that it was given a Second Reading.
It has been suggested that it would be wrong of this House to set aside the considered view of the four Members of the House who were appointed to consider this matter as a Committee. I respect those Members. I do not dissent from the fact that they judged the evidence adduced before them with great care and diligence and, as they saw it, with great objectivity.
I understand the sensitivity about setting aside the judgment of those who, however tong they sat, sat for only a brief time considering this problem while others of us have had it with us for years in our constituencies. Those of us who have been concerned in this problem as a constituency matter are equally

entitled to ask the House not to set aside our opinion as lightly as some would argue purely on some pedantic view of precedent and constitutional legalism.

Mr. C. Johnson: Would not my hon. Friend agree that the obligation upon the Committee was to see whether the Preamble was proved by evidence and that the Committee was prepared to sit as long as any evidence relevant to that matter was put before it? Therefore, it is unfair to suggest that the Committee curtailed the evidence. The promoters could have brought in everything to which reference has been made tonight.

Mr. Redhead: If my hon. Friend has patience to hear me out, I will deal with that point.
I make the point also that in the Second Reading debate, only one speech was directed in opposition to this part of the Bill and that it came from an hon. Member who lives far from Epping Forest and, as far as I am aware, has no constituency interest and, therefore, had no personal local knowledge of the subject. The Second Reading was accorded by the House without a Division in the knowledge that five local authorities had indicated their support of the Bill to the City Corporation and only one affected area had opposed it. That one, it was able to be shown before the Committee, had at an earlier date expressed great concern about the nuisance and the problem arising from the very complaints which have been made by the live local authorities who supported the City Corporation in its Bill.
Considerable play has been made of the quotation from Erskine May that in circumstances of this kind it is unusual to have a Bill recommitted and that it requires a strong case to be made for this to be done. I submit that in the circumstances which I have outlined it is no less important that a vital and substantial part—indeed, the main part of a Bill of this character—should not be thrown out, nor should the House acquiesce in its being thrown out, unless there is a demonstrably strong case for so doing, and I submit that on balance the case is not strong.
I have read very carefully all the minutes of the Committee. As a test of the strength of that evidence, I venture


to ask whether the opposition to this part of the Bill, and the evidence offered in support of that opposition, was so strong as to lead the Committee to a unanimous decision to throw out this part of the Bill? We do not know what happens officially among the Committee. Was there no doubt, no hesitation, in their minds? With great respect, I suggest that the readiness with which the Committee now offers, through its Chairman—and I appreciate his position—to hear further evidence, if the House so desires, indicates that in the minds of the Committee there is not a unanimous conviction that the decision was right and that all the evidence has been presented to the Committee and has been evaluated by it.
It would be wrong for the House to acquiesce in throwing out these important provisions, particularly in the light of the knowledge that we now have that three of the important local authorities which are affected have decided to lodge petitions against alterations to the Bill. It has been asked, fairly enough, why these local authorities did not do this before. Hon. Members ought to appreciate the peculiar circumstances of this Bill. Epping Forest lies within the area of local authorities who have no jurisdiction over or responsibility for its management. By purely historical circumstances, that responsibility is vested in the City Corporation. It follows, therefore, that any legislation to deal with a problem of this kind comes best and, in the minds of all of us who gave consideration to the problem over the years, most adequately and most fittingly from the body which is charged statutorily with responsibility for Epping Forest. But it is not true to say, as has been said in the debate, that the local authorities which have taken this action did not bother previously to come forward and to support the Bill. That is quite erroneous. Every one of the five to which I have referred specifically recorded by resolution its wholehearted support of the Bill and fortified the City Corporation with that information, which I believe I am correct in saying, if not brought to the notice of the House on Second Reading, was made known to the Committee during its deliberations.
Was anyone to anticipate the kind of attitude which we have heard expressed

tonight? I do not think that anyone can be blamed for not apprehending that the Committee would take the line which appears to be inferred from the minutes of the proceedings and which has been expressed by an hon. Member tonight—that a whole list of correspondence received, for example, by the hon. Member for Walthamstow, East, or a whole schedule of complaints of incidents concerning accidents on the road put in by the police, would be discounted because evidence was not available to prove, as would be required in a court of law in a criminal case, the actual nature of the incident in every case. Surely everyone was entitled to believe that the Committee would be sensitive to the fact that a whole schedule of complaints and a whole list of incidents compiled over the years by responsible and authoritative people would at least be accepted as evidence of a very real problem and a very real burden of complaint and nuisance in the area.
I suggest with all due respect that some distinction must be drawn as between the proceedings of a Committee of this House in such circumstances and what is properly required in the way of individual proof of a case in a court of law, and that it is wrong to dismiss that kind of evidence as being no more than hearsay.
In view of the Second Reading debate, the nature of that debate and the decision in the circumstances at it was taken, surely the local authorities who are intimately concerned in this matter, within whose area the Epping Forest lies, were entitled to believe that they could rely upon the resources of the City Corporation, the promoters of the Bill, to see it through the Committee and this House without the necessity for them to incur expense on what at that stage, after all, would appear to be no more than the unnecessary negative procedure of lodging a petition against alterations to the Bill.
Be that as it may, I submit that the fact that they have now decided so to petition in the knowledge of all the evidence that has been adduced before the Committee must surely be taken as indicative of the fact that they have further evidence of direct character apart from local knowledge, for otherwise, believe me, they would not risk


the displeasure of the ratepayers in incurring expense at this stage in order to make a mere demonstration before the Committee; and if they have such evidence—as a member of one of the authorities concerned, and without wishing to anticipate what I believe is the right course, which is that the Committee should have opportunity to consider that evidence, I believe such evidence exists—in those circumstances I believe that the local authorities should have the opportunity to put it.
I am asking the House not to dismiss this Motion merely on some pedantic ground of precedent, but to look at it from the point of view of the broad public interest of thousands of people in the area affected, for if this recommittal does not take place, if there is no further opportunity at this stage for second thoughts about the issue, the only alternative is that the problems about which those of us who are concerned with the matter have complained persistently over the last few years will not only be perpetuated but are likely to grow.
I would charge hon. Members to say —indeed, I would put it to the members of the Committee to answer on reflection—whether we are right to contemplate having it upon our conscience that we are insisting upon another 20 accidents a year which by this Bill could be prevented. Surely the toll of the highways is already sufficiently appalling that we would grasp for any opportunity to minimise it even to that extent?
The only alternative to meet this problem short of legislation—and if the Bill goes out now there can, clearly, be no prospect of legislation for some time to come—is for the City Corporation to introduce new byelaws which will fortify the average citizen with the means of apprehending those who have caused damage, of suing in the civil courts, of harassing the commoners in the process of doing so and of creating, in view of the legal opinion expressed unchallenged before the Committee, a burden which would be truly intolerable for the police, for once that opinion is widely known in the locality the police will have a very busy time indeed responding to the demands of aggrieved citizens who call upon them to enforce the law as we now understand it to be.
11.0 p.m.
For all those reasons, there is a strong case at least for asking the Committee to look at this matter again. In all fairness and in all justice, whoever was responsible and whatever criticism can be advanced in respect of those who now wish to be heard and who neglected to do so before, they should now have the opportunity to be heard. They can be heard only if the Bill is recommitted. For those reasons, I urge the House, as a matter of common sense and ordinary justice, to agree to the Motion.

Mr. William Roots: A number of aspects have been mentioned in the course of this interesting debate, but it is of some importance to look at the matter from the point of view of the promoters, as it is then apparent that there are unusual circumstances. The promoters, the City Corporation, have no direct interest in the matter. They have an interest as a responsible public authority and they would not wish what is undoubtedly a serious nuisance to emanate from the Epping Forest of which they are the conservators. We have heard no sort of denial that there is a serious nuisance caused in districts round about. On the other hand, as conservators of the forest they have an important duty to the commoners.
As has become apparent, they have sought to exercise their duties by giving protection to householders by Part II and by giving commoners the serious benefit of a chance for compensation as they lose part of their rights—as they will. It is clear from the experience of many hon. Members who know the district that the rights involve considerable nuisance, but are to be given up by one means or another. The advantage of the Bill, as I think, rightly, is that some compensation for the loss of these rights would be provided.
It is apparent from the decision of the Committee that the nuisance would not be stopped and the compensation, which is of real benefit, would be lost. There has not been a single speech to suggest that anybody will benefit from the present situation before the House. It must be extremely unusual for the promoters to be in this position and for no one to be able to think of any single benefit resulting from the Committee's decision. The common rights are quite


unaffected. Footpaths are quite unaffected, as various hon. Members opposite have pointed out. This has nothing to do with commons or footpaths which will not be affected in any way.
It is now apparent that to let the present situation continue is only to cause disadvantage and I remind the House of the undoubted public disadvantage in terms of accidents, quite apart from local residents and commoners. Surely, in that event, the only reason for not carrying through this procedure is that the House does it only in unusual circumstances. Can we say that there is all that on one side of the scales and, on the other, simply that

Main Question put and agreed to.

Bill considered accordingly; to be read the Third time.

SUPPLY

Again considered in Committee.

Original Question again proposed.

this is a rare procedure and that, for that reason, we are to produce a result which pleases no one and produces a rather farcical situation?

It seems almost impossible to believe that the Private Bill Committee, if given an opportunity to find a suitable better solution to the problem, perhaps by revised wording, will not be able to do so. At any rate, it is worth while allowing it to try to escape from the rather ridiculous position which now obtains.

Question put, That "now considered" stand part of the Question:—

The House divided: Ayes 39, Noes 22.

Division No. 218.]
AYES
[11.6 p.m.


Barlow, Sir John
Elliott, R.W. (Nwcastle-upon-Tyne, N.)
Maginnis, John E.


Batsford, Brian
Gilmour, Sir John
Mathew, Robert (Honiton)


Biffen, John
Glover, Sir Douglas
More, Jasper (Ludlow)


Bingham, R. M.
Goodhew, Victor
Pitt, Miss Edith


Box, Donald
Hastings, Stephen
Prior, J. M. L.


Bullard, Denys
Hill, J. E. B. (S. Norfolk)
Russell, Ronald


Campbell, Gordon (Moray &amp; Nairn)
Hornsby-Smith, Rt. Hon. Dame P.
Sharples, Richard


Chichester-Clark, R.
Howard, Hon. G. R. (St. Ives)
Studholme, Sir Henry


Clark, William (Nottingham, S.)
Hughes-Young, Michael
Thornton-Kemsley, Sir Colin


Cleaver Leonard
Johnson Smith, Geoffrey
Vane, W. M. F.


Cooke, Robert
King, Dr. Horace
Wilson, Geoffrey (Truro)


Corfield, F. V.
Lilley, F. J. P.



Ede, Rt. Hon. C.
McInnes, James
TELLERS FOR THE AYES:


Elliot, Capt. Walter (Carshalton)
McLaren, Martin
Mr Carol Johnson and




Sir Godfrey Nicholson.




NOES


Brown, Alan (Tottenham)
Howell, Charles A. (Perry Barr)
Redhead, E. C.


Brown, Rt. Hon. George (Belper)
Howell, Denis (Small Heath)
Ridley, Hon. Nicholas


Cliffe, Michael
Kershaw, Anthony
Roots, William


Delargy, Hugh
Lever, L. M. (Ardwick)
Shaw, M.


Finlay, Graeme
Mawby, Ray
Sorensen, R. W.


Fraser, Ian (Plymouth, Sutton)
Parker, John
Thornton, Ernest


Grant-Ferris, Wg. Cdr. R.
Pearson, Frank (Clitheroe)



Harvey, John (Walthamstow, E.)
Prentice, R. E.
TELLERS FOR THE NOES:




Mr. Oram and Mr. Elwyn Jones.

Mr. Ray Mawby: Mr. Ray Mawby (Totnes) rose——

It being after Ten o'clock, The CHAIRMAN left the Chair to report Progress and ask leave to sit again.

Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

EXMOUTH HOSPITAL

Motion made, and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn.—[Mr. Finlay.]

11.15 p.m.

Mr. Robert Mathew: I am grateful for the opportunity to raise the question of the future of Exmouth Hospital and to express the strongest possible protest against the proposal contained in the Hospital Plan, the Blue Book, to change the status of this hospital from a general hospital to a hospital specialising in the care of old people, from acute to geriatric.
This decision has been greeted with almost universal dismay in Exmouth. There can be scarcely an intelligent person in the area who does not regard the proposal as utterly wrong. Protests have been registered by the Exmouth Urban District Council, the Lympstone Council, the Withycombe Raleigh Women's Institute, the Red Cross, St. John's Ambulance, the Exmouth Branch of the Business and Professional Women's Association, and, I may add, for the benefit of hon. Gentlemen opposite, the local Labour Party.
In addition, the medical staff committee disapproves wholeheartedly and is convinced that the loss to the local community would be irreparable, and the Exmouth Hospital House Committee takes the same view, as do the Friends of Exmouth Hospital League who, as my hon. Friend knows, have done a great deal of work for this hospital.
The preface to the Blue Book states:
Hospitals are for people and exist to serve the public.
May I point out to my hon. Friend that here an attempt is being made to rationalise the hospital service, and among those to be rationalised is a large body of patients who will be put to a great amount of trouble to obtain a service which they have previously enjoyed very much more easily.
The plan appears to cut right across the policy of the British Medical Association, as recommended in the Platt Report, that there should be more, and not fewer, general practitioner beds, where the general practitioner has the opportunity of looking after his patients

throughout the whole course of the illness, with diagnostic facilities for doing so. It is apparent that the family doctor welcomes his increased responsibility. There is no doubt that it raises his morale, his stature, and, indeed, his status in the eyes of his patients. Should it become possible to include beds for general practitioners in the new district hospitals, it can only affect and help those in the immediate neighbourhood of this hospital, and it would be impossible to replace for many others amenities now enjoyed by family doctors in the general practitioner hospital.
I should like to remind my hon. Friend that the President of the Royal College of Surgeons recently said that if British medicine is to remain British medicine it must not pay lip-service to the general practitioners, but give genuine admiration and support. It has been stated with great emphasis by many consultants that where the doctors had a local hospital wherein they could look after their own patients themselves there was a far higher standard of general medical practice, and the fact is that there is no substitute for the general practitioner. No hospital plan can ever replace the family doctor as the centre of medical care. Any objection that may be made that small hospitals can be uneconomic or inefficient may in certain cases be economically true, but it is not true at all in terms of human needs.
I need not stress to my hon. Friend the fact, of which she will be aware, that Exmouth is a rapidly growing town, and a very prosperous one. The population is now about 20,000, and is growing. There is a high illness incidence, and I should point out that the population may be nearly double during the five months of the holiday season. If Exmouth Hospital ceases to be an acute hospital, or general hospital, many hundreds of people will have to travel a considerable distance to obtain the attention they now receive, both acute medical and surgical, in their own town, and in the care of their own doctor. In those conditions, the general practitioner is his own house officer, and is glad to be so.
I think that my right hon. Friend will concede that this is a first-rate hospital, of which everyone in the area is justifiably exceedingly proud. It may well be —in fact, I concede at once—that there


is need for more geriatric beds, but I submit that those should be in addition to the present facilities. There are already a number of convalescent homes, eventide homes, homes for the aged, residential homes, homes for the blind and private nursing homes in the area, and there is a case for an increase in the number of geriatric beds. There is also a case for an extension of the maternity services in this hospital. I shall submit that the eventual plan should envisage both geriatric and maternity wings, with a total of about 70 beds in the hospital.
The views of the consultants working in the hospital have been sought and, without exception, they view with grave disquiet the proposal to turn the Exmouth Hospital into a geriatric hospital. Apart from the great deal of major and intermediate surgery—which, together with minor surgery, has amounted to more than 600 cases a year—there is a greater and equally important amount of acute medical work, and a heavy load of geriatric patients.
I would point out that the local position will not be made any easier if the Minister's plan, or possible plan, to do away with the Budleigh Salterton Hospital is also carried out. Budleigh Salterton is only a very few miles away, and this intention has caused further indignation. I will, in due course, submit to my right hon. Friend the strongest possible case for the continuation of that hospital, but the whole situation will be exacerbated if both proposals are carried out. If one takes the whole future situation into account, the large number of cases I have cited, together with those appearing in the casualty, X-ray and physiotherapy departments, I submit that in this particular case the district hospital may well be completely unable to cope with the growing number.
My hon. Friend will no doubt say that the distance to Exeter is only about 11 miles but, in fact, because the Exmouth hospital services cover a very much larger area it could be anything up to 17 miles. During the height of the holiday season, on overcrowded roads, I have little doubt that the ambulance service would be strained to breaking point, valuable time would be lost, and the general practitioner denied the opportunity of looking after his patient during the whole course of the incident.
Apart from the approaches made to me and to the Minister from my constituency—which, incidentally, includes a petition that has already been signed by a very large proportion of the whole population—approaches have been made to me and, I think, also to the Minister, by a number of organisations and people outside my constituency who are alarmed at his proposal. I submit that this is really a calamitous proposal, and I urge the Minister to have second thoughts before it is too late.
I often feel that such decisions are arrived at in Whitehall—or, in this case, in Savile Row—by experts who regard the whole United Kingdom as one vast conurbation, but what is suitable and practical in the London suburbs or in the Birmingham area is totally impracticable in rural Devon. Exmouth is not a very large town but it is a considerable centre. The police headquarters for the division and a number of other things of that sort make it comparably a much larger and more important centre than its population would indicate in the overcrowded areas of the Midlands or in the neighbourhood of London.
I put it to my hon. Friend that the voice of the people of Exmouth has spoken in unmistakable terms. The Minister has received a number of petitions and appeals already, and I ask my hon. Friend to act. I suggest that this action should be that, first, the Exmouth Hospital should be put back on the acute list immediately—and by all means let this decision be reviewed in five years' time. Secondly, the hospital should be enlarged and a very necessary geriatric ward added. I suggest also that there should be a maternity unit. There is great need for it in the area and there is no place more suited for a 12-bed maternity unit than Exmouth. I appeal with some confidence to my hon. Friend to recognise that there has been a wrong decision and that this wrong policy decision should be righted before it too late.

11.26 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Health (Miss Edith Pitt): First, I should like to assure my hon. Friend the Member for Honiton (Mr. Mathew) that those of us who work at the Ministry in Savile Row and who represent in Parliament areas in the


Midlands know and love the West Country.
My Lon. Friend has raised as a constituency matter an issue—the future of the small hospitals—which will arise in many parts of the country as we go forward with the development of the hospital service foreshadowed in the Command Paper which was published on 23rd January last. This subject was touched upon by my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Scotland and other hon. Members in the debate on 4th June on the Hospital Plan, but I think it useful, and I am grateful to my hon. Friend, to have another opportunity of putting before the House the broad principles which arise, and that we should consider the application of those principles in a particular case.
The proposals set out in the Command Paper are based largely on the concept of the district general hospital. This is not a new idea, but rather represents the result of a process of evolution. There has been an increasing realisation in recent years that we shall have the full benefit of the resources of modern medicine in treatment and diagnosis only if we concentrate them in hospitals which offer the full range of treatment, except perhaps for those specialties, sometimes called super-specialties, such as radiotherapy, neuro-surgery and plastic surgery, which need a relatively large catchment area and which would be provided only at certain hospitals.
The district general hospital will normally be of 600 to 800 beds, serving a population of 100,000 to 150,000. Some might be larger and some smaller, but few would be of less than 300 beds. Clearly, the development of district general hospitals must have its effect on the pattern as a whole and, in particular, on existing small hospitals.
We have suggested in the Command Paper how we think that this is likely to happen. There will be cases where the provision of a district general hospital quickly attracts the acute cases which would previously have gone to small hospitals not very far away. In other cases, it may be agreed that an existing small hospital could more usefully serve for older patients who have no acute condition, but who need prolonged hospital care and can best receive

it in the area with which they are familiar. My hon. Friend spoke of the need for this care and for more geriatric beds in Exmouth, and I think that he will agree that, of all cases, these, which are frequently long-term cases, are in a special category calling for treatment in their own home area and their own surroundings.

Mr. Mathew: I agree that that is so, but the suggestion is that that must be, additional, without destroying the great tradition built up around the general practitioner which is so valuable to the local community but which will be utterly destroyed by the district general hospital.

Miss Pitt: I am coming to the general considerations, but I wanted to make clear that the provision of local geriatric beds does make a special call on local facilities.
In other cases, these small hospitals may be retained as maternity units, and some, in the more remote areas or where isolated towns receive an exceptional influx of seasonal visitors, may continue to receive medical emergencies which do not require specialist facilities. For the main part, however, we believe that the provision of comprehensive services in district general hospitals will be readily accepted by the people as the best and most practical means of placing the full range of hospital facilities at the disposal of the community; and we believe that people will also readily accept that this outweighs the disadvantage of longer travel for some patients and their relatives.
It is a matter of balance, I think. If we wish to provide the widest range of medical and surgical facilities, with all the equipment to serve them, to attract the best consultants to the service and to give consultants the opportunity of contact with other members of their profession—and this with one idea only, that is, providing to the people who receive the service the best quality that we can obtain—then, on balance, we must come down in favour of the district general hospital. I believe that that would be the approach of all those concerned when thinking in terms of obtaining service for those of their relatives


who have to go into hospital, even though it might involve longer travelling.
The Devon and Exeter area, with a population of 529,000—expected to rise to 549,000 by 1975 is at present served by a total of 55 hospitals, 36 of which are of less than 50 beds. As is stated on page 196 of the Command Paper, it is the policy to concentrate services so far as possible in district general hospitals at Exeter, Torquay and Barnstaple, retaining small hospitals where circumstances make this necessary. My hon. Friend is particularly concerned about Exmouth, which is only about 11 miles from Exeter, and he mentioned also Budleigh Salterton which, if my knowledge of local geography serves me aright, is about three miles away. Both raise the same point about a small hospital which has given good service to the community.
At present, acute work in Exeter is carried on in the Royal Devon and Exeter Hospital and the City Hospital, with the West of England Eye Infirmary and the Princess Elizabeth Orthopaedic Hospital making their special contribution and, of course, serving a wider area. Plans are, however, under consideration for a new district general hospital at Wonford, on the outskirts of Exeter, which will not only permit but will demand a rethinking of the shape of hospital services in this part of the area.
Exmouth Hospital, like many others in the West Country and elsewhere, owes a great debt to the service given by local general practitioners, and I am very glad to join my hon. Friend in paying tribute to the part they have played. We look forward to continued and strengthened association of the general practitioner with the hospital service and this is made quite clear in the Hospital Plan. It was also repeated at some length by the Minister in the debate on 4th June, to which I have referred, when my right hon. Friend stressed that it was perhaps right that the last words in that debate should be concerned with general practice and with the patient as an individual and a human being. I feel that that emphasises the importance which we attach to the continued contribution of the general practitioner to the hospital

service and, indeed, to the community service.
I wish also to mention that among the plans for the Wonford development is a medical centre, to be financed by a local trust, where doctors from the surrounding area can meet their hospital colleagues and thus keep in touch with their cases referred to hospital. I do not propose at this stage to argue in detail what should happen in the case of any particular hospital likely to be affected, because no final decisions have been made. But I should like to draw the attention of my hon. Friend to three matters.
In the first place, it is stated in the preface to the Command Paper—and this was underlined by Government spokesmen in the debate on 4th June—that the intention is that the proposals of the Command Paper shall be reviewed annually. Secondly, as my right hon. Friend stated in the same debate, the Command Paper makes clear that except where specific decisions have already been announced, it does not finally commit the individual details of closure, change of use, or of new building but, as and when the time comes when each executive decision has to be taken by regional hospital boards, the boards will be anxious to consider the views of informed local opinion and indeed will usually take the initiative in so doing. Thirdly, I would point out that the first ward blocks at the new Wonford Hospital are not likely to be in operation until the second half of the decade and it will thus be 1970 or later before we shall be able to judge the effect of the new hospital on other hospitals in the area.
My hon. Friend asked for an assurance that there would be no change for five years and that the Exmouth beds shall remain designated as acute for this period. I can say that the beds at present are acute and will remain so for at least five years. There is, as I hope I have made clear, provision for annual review of the plan and for local discussion and consideration of local views before any decisions are finalised. At this stage, therefore, the question of review, as has been said by my right hon. Friend, is primarily a matter for regional hospital boards, because they are responsible for planning in the area. No doubt my hon.


Friend will be glad to know that representatives of the South-Western Regional Hospital Board have arranged to receive representations from the urban district council on 10th July, and I have no doubt that the council will be fully informed so as to represent all the local views, which my hon. Friend has listed tonight, about developments in Exmouth.
I hope that that will go some way to satisfy my hon. Friend that local consideration is a very live and important part of the developments in the hospital field.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at twenty minutes to Twelve o'clock.